There have been rising debates on the integration of Advance Nursing Practice (ANP) as a form of healthcare provision that seems to replace conventional health care practice. Advance Nurse Practice refers to multi-disciplinary health care providers, who provide nursing and health care interventions that have an impact on the health an individual patient, the care of a health risk condition, management of communities as well as public health policies. The nature of ANP is not to be confined to a central institution, but rather having the health care official visiting communities in their residential areas (O’Grady, 2008). This paper will establish the cost-effectiveness of advance nursing practice as a health care discipline.
To begin with, the cost-effectiveness of ANP is experienced in how it helps to reduce hospital visits by patients. Study findings by Swan et al (2015) reveal that the visits by Advance Nursing Practitioners into the community settlements have proven to have the same outcomes clinically. Looking at the logistical cost of transporting a few ANP professionals with their workstations through to the patients in their domestic settings are far much lower than having the whole community to scramble over institutionalized care. The patients and the family members do not have to relinquish their economic duties to attend to the provision of health facilities. In cases where the transportation of a patient would adversely affect their medical condition, advanced nursing practitioners are allowed to make visits to the patient’s residence (Cooke, 2018).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
By reducing the cost of hospitalization, the ANP, reduces the pressure by institutions to hire personnel needed to run health care facilities. According to Cooke (2018), nurse practitioners in the ANP field receive enough training to be able to handle their patients without physician supervision. Cutting down the involvement of physician costs in ANP care saves money for the health programs as well as for the patient. Governmental departments prefer to use Advanced Nursing Practice methods because of its mobility. The community health awareness and vaccination programs have trained professional cover an extensive amount of geographical area within a considerably shorter time.
Furthermore, the ANP officials provide health education to the patients, their immediate relatives as well as the community at large on preventing communicable diseases, and providing care to patients. This manages the risks of prevalent outbreaks. According to O’Grady (2008), the ANP reduce the cost of health care by 23% as compared to conventional health care by providing personalized care that is tailored to fit the economic status of the patients involved. The prescribed medications and control measures are geared to fit the financial ability of the communities that the ANP officer attends to. Also, the fact that the ANP officers handling a patient are maintained at a minimum means that there is some relatively faster rate of decision making, saving lives and costs of maintain a patient in critical condition. Advance Nursing Practice does not involve long lists of bureaucracy and protocols that must be followed before the implementation of a decision.
This paper will discuss the study design by Donald et al (2014), which reviewed the cost-effectiveness of ANP by comparing it to clinical nurse specialists. Donald et al (2014) reviewed 4397 medical records between 1980 and 2012. The results were based on the quality of Randomized Controlled Trials, which found out that ANP related records ranked 19 out of the 43 qualified RCTs. The study also revealed that based onCochrane risk of bias tool, 19% had a high risk, and 39% had a moderate risk; making it roughly 58% (of 43 RCTs) which stood a likely chance to have bias.
Inasmuch as there are a lot of strengths associated with ANP as a health care alternative, there are core restrictions that must be addressed. Based on the fact that ANP officers have to travel a relatively longer distance to interact with their patients, there are cases when it is not applicable. For example, in the case of surgeries, where mullet-disciplinary medical attention is necessary for the recovery of the patient, ANP would worsen the situation (Swan, 2015).
References
Cooke, C., (2015) Ten Ways Nps reduce costs, improves quality. Modern Medicine Network. Accessed online on April 25, 2018 from https://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/managed-healthcare-executive/news/ten-ways-nps-reduce-costs-improve -quality/page/0/2
Donald, F., et al. (2014). A Systemic Review of the Cost-Effectiveness of Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Specialists: What is the Quality of the Evidence? Nursing Research Practice DOI: 10.1155/2014/896587. Accessed online on April 26, 2018 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4167459
O’Grady, E.T. (2008). Chapter 43 Advanvced Practice Registered Nurses: The Impact on Patient Safety and Quality. NCBI Bookshel. Accessed online on April 25, 2018 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2641/#_NBK2641_pubdet_
Swan, M., et al (2015). Quality of primary care by advanced practice nurses: a systematic review. I nternational Journal for Quality in Health Care , 2015, 27(5), 396 – 404 doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzv054.
