Nursing is one of the most fulfilling career paths that one can pursue. Many people are considering pursuing a career in nursing, and it’s vital that they know the field is quite broad. One of the most promising nursing career choices to make is becoming an APRN (Advanced Practice Nursing Practitioner). This is a registered nurse who has completed Masters’ or post Masters’ education and has specialized in a distinguished role and patient population.
Types Of APRNs
APRN education and certification enable qualified registered nurses to assess, diagnose, order tests, prescribe medications, and handle unique patient problems. There are four distinct APRN roles that a nurse can pursue, which are Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM), Certified Nurse Anesthetists (CNA), Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS), and Nurse Practitioners (NP). The Certified Nurse Midwife covers the entirety of primary healthcare services for women for their lifespan. This encompasses family planning services, gynecologic care, preconception care, prenatal care, postnatal care, childbirth, and newborn care. Additionally, CNWs are tasked with treating their female clients’ male partners for reproductive health and sexually transmitted diseases. CNWs can work in community clinics, public health facilities, or private offices.
On the other hand, the Certified Nurse Anesthetist revolves around providing the full spectrum of anesthesia care to patients of all ages and health statuses. The expertise of CNAs is vital to ensuring that patients can undergo all kinds of surgical procedures without having to deal with the pain. As a result, they primarily work in hospital surgical suites. The Clinical Nurse Specialist covers providing advanced-level care for one of the six described patient groups. The education encompasses the whole continuum of care for a specific portion of the population. The role of a CNS includes diagnosis and treatment of various ailments, health promotion, disease management, and prevention of risk behaviors and illness among communities, groups, families, and individuals.
The Nurse Practitioner practice is about providing care to patients independently or within a health organization setting to one of the six described patient groups. Thus, they are tasked with health education, health promotion, counseling, diagnosis, disease prevention, and managing acute and chronic ailments. NPs also offer comprehensive initial and ongoing patient care in internal medicine, women’s health, geriatrics, pediatrics, and family practice. They can also focus their education on becoming acute care NPs or primary care NPs. These have separate competencies and distinct certifications.
The Ins And Outs Of APRN Practice
Once one has completed their Masters’ or post Masters’ education and earned their APRN certification, they can launch their career in their field of specialization. In the US, the path that an APRN career takes somewhat depends on their state. Some states allow APRNs to practice independently in some distinctions, while in other states, they will be required to seek a supervising physician and get into a collaborative agreement. For those living in states requiring collaborative agreements from APRNs looking to start their practice, the situation might be changing soon. This is thanks to the intense lobbying being undertaken by APRN industry groups led by the NCSBN (National Council of State Boards of Nursing) for the adoption of the Consensus Model. This model takes into account the realities of today’s healthcare delivery and seeks to open up avenues for APRNs to have full independent practice authority and prescriptive authority across all 50 states.
Is the path to becoming an APRN tough? What is APRN in nursing? The name already reveals the truth as it starts with “Advanced.” This means one needs dedication and commitment to studying as they will need an advanced degree and excel in strict state nursing board standards to get their practicing license. A Masters’ is the minimum educational standard for earning an APRN license in all US states. The NCSBN and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) recommend that interested individuals pursue the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) as the minimum advanced education qualification. The recommendation was made in 2004, and over the last decade, the field has been slowly shifting in this direction. Some APRN industry bodies like the American Association of Nursing Anesthetists (AANA) aim to have the DNP as its mandatory minimum licensing requirement by 2025. Therefore, anyone taking DNP now will be future-proofing their APRN career.
Are APRNs The Future Of Healthcare?
The Covid-19 pandemic is causing radical changes in the healthcare industry, with countries worldwide looking to optimize their healthcare systems. The traditional healthcare systems have had an extremely challenging time handling the healthcare crisis brought about by the pandemic. Now more than ever before, there is a case to be made that APRNs are the future of healthcare. This is because there are numerous benefits to having a healthcare system that has APRNs as one of its pillars. Firstly, APRNs can easily provide quality medical care to individuals that live in rural areas and don’t have access to physicians. The inability to give people living in remote areas access to quality healthcare is one of the shortcomings of the current healthcare system.
In addition to providing quality healthcare, APRNs also offer affordable care, which is advantageous to both private-pay and insured patients. The US has arguably the world’s costliest healthcare system, leaving a considerable portion of the population unable to afford medical care. Using APRNs to bring down the cost of medical care means that even the financially disadvantaged can access quality healthcare services whenever they need them. Moreover, APRNs can come in handy in lessening patient diagnosis and treatment burden on the physicians and specialists. APRNs can be attending to patients seeking routine care and directing those with severe ailments or challenging cases to physicians and specialists. The result will be that physicians can give patients with severe cases all the attention they need, reducing misdiagnosis cases.
Time For New Career Goals
Whether you are a single young adult looking to establish a career path for the rest of your life, or even if you are a parent looking to succeed in a nursing program, there is a career path in the healthcare industry for everyone. It’s never too late to further your education to help elevate your quality of life.
Anyone can start their journey to a career as an APRN, no matter what they are currently doing. Accelerated nursing programs enable one to get into nursing if they have a bachelor’s degree in an unrelated field. Once they are in the nursing realm, they can start working to become APRNs.