Discussion Reply – (2)

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Week 5 Discussion
As a future family nurse practitioner where one of my main functions will be to provide the best care to my patients based on evidenced based practice and within my scope of practice, guided by state regulations.  Three current trends or issues I believe are most important to me as a future nurse practitioner are the limitations place on scope of practice, autonomy and higher education requirements. Patients will and are affected by these restrictions especially in rural areas where there are no doctors and patients are relying on the service of the advanced practice nurse. Nurse practitioners can alleviate some of the primary care shortage facing the United States, but their scope-of-practice is limited by state regulation (Gadbois, Miller, Tyler, & Intrator, 2015), and those limitations could be from treatment and diagnosis to prescribing of controlled substances.  Many states also increased barriers to entry, requiring high levels of education before entering practice (Gadbois, Miller, Tyler, & Intrator, 2015).  Some states are requiring a DNP to practice independently and that could also deeply affect the patients when the masters prepared advanced practice nurse is not allowed to fully function as trained. States vary in requirements for the advanced practice nurse but relaxing of state restrictions on NP practice should increase the use of NPs as primary care providers. Many professional organizations have brought the scope-of-practice issue to the forefront with some legislators supporting the expanded role of NPs and others standing strong with physician organizations who oppose broadening the scope-of-practice for NPs (Hain, & Fleck).
My philosophy will be to treat everyone regardless of who they are, as if there are my close family members, provide the best care even if their ability to pay is limited. We should provide quality care and expand to services to all those that need it.
References
Gadbois, E. A., Miller, E. A., Tyler, D., & Intrator, O. (2015). Trends in state regulation of nurse practitioners and physician assistants, 2001 to 2010. Medical Care Research
Hain, D., & Fleck, L. (2014). Barriers to nurse practitioner practice that impact healthcare redesign. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 19(2).