The nursing scope encompasses responsibilities, roles, functions, and activities that an educated nurse is competent to perform while adhering to the terms of his or her professional license. This essay will give a holistic analysis of the scope of nursing based on the ideas presented in the article "Scope of Practice," authored by the American Nurses Association (ANA). The essay will also give an opinion about this very article based on personal judgments and perceptions.
According to ANA, nursing standards and scope can be understood in terms of who nurses are, what they do, where they operate from when nurses work, and why they work (American Nurses Association, n.d.). Registered nurses are personnel that has been trained, titled by certified bodies, and have an active license permitting them to practice nursing. Nursing as a profession helps patients recover from illnesses and prevent the occurrences of diseases to make sure that the public is healthy. Nurses work from wherever ailing patients need medical attention, and their knowledge and skills need to be put to practice at any time. The nursing profession's importance is to maintain a healthy nation and to oblige the nursing society's contract requirements. However, the scope of practice among nurses is always changing to suit current and future public standards.
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Nurses do not just practice because they have been educated in this field. Bodies like ANA have come up with programs that recognize the specialty of a nurse, approve various specialty nurses based on merit, and determine nurses' competency (American Nurses Association, n.d.). The licensing of healthcare workers, including nurses, for example, in the US, is state-controlled. ANA believes that a satisfactory healthcare system consists of a variety of healthcare experts so that patients have a wide scale of choice of who is best suited to help them. In the US, the Coalition of Patients' Rights (CPR) was created and has over 35 organizations representing a wide range of healthcare workers. Each organization is geared toward providing affordable, effective, and safe healthcare to the public. ANA was also created to advance and protect the welfare of nurses and their practices. With the help of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN), ANA is focused on advocating for regulatory changes like the easing of restrictions on nurses' practice so that they can fully utilize their knowledge and skills.
The article has provided resourceful insight into the standards of practice for nurses. However, there are some instances where the article has generalized information about nursing, which I would wish to shed more light on. According to ANA, nurses are directly involved in treating patients and providing healthcare services. Yet, nurses are not bound to only giving treatment. Nurses can also be used as educators. There is an increasing demand for tutors in the medical field, and nurses who have experience on the job can offer their skills to students in undergraduate school, for example, rather than outsourcing an educator who only provides theoretical knowledge (Ford, 2020). Ford adds that nursing students in school today are future practicing nurses, and there is a need for them to be educated by experienced nursing tutors. Nurses can also be used to educate the public in awareness campaigns about emergency diseases like cholera and how to prevent oneself from such deadly diseases. Thus, practicing nurses have a diversity of knowledge application areas that are not only used in treating patients but also offering medical education.
In my opinion, state-based healthcare licensing in the US has had led to milestone improvements in the healthcare system. According to Wicklund, the healthcare licensing process in each state across America has ensured topnotch healthcare standards and protection of patients (Wicklund, 2019). The state-based healthcare system has saved patients from the inconveniences involved in traveling to look for a physician because physicians come looking for the patient upon notification. If the US had a federal-based healthcare system, it would be difficult to actualize such an achievement because the federal government would have generalized healthcare procedures and Acts that may have hit below patients' expectations. Besides, a state-controlled licensing system enhances the local accountability of health workers like nurses and physicians, which creates an equal balance between physicians' and patients' protection.
In conclusion, the scope of nursing practice provides a framework or rubric that can always be referred to ensure that a nurse, for example, is competent and is working to achieve the set standard of nursing. With the support of bodies like ANA, there is an assurance that nurses' welfare is adhered to by labor associations. Besides, patients' quality of care is also upheld. Also, nurses are restricted in taking care of patients' health, but can also be used as educators to student nurses who are yet to begin practice.
References
American Nurses Association, A., n.d. Nursing Scope Of Practice | American Nurses Association .
Available at: https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/scope-of-practice/ [Accessed 23 June 2020].
Ford, S., 2020. 'Remember That The Students Of Today Are The Nurses Of Tomorrow' | Nursing
Times . Available at: <https://www.nursingtimes.net/opinion/remember-that-the-students-of-today-are-the-nurses-of-tomorrow-18-06-2020/> [Accessed 23 June 2020].
