Group items tagged

These are the Adult Gero Acute Care NP competencies that were developed by the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) in 2012. Interesting that these were only developed 3 years ago!

This article describes entry-level competencies for NPs practicing in emergency care - it was the first to define these competencies which is key since the roles of APRNs have expanded. A Nurse Practitioner (NP) Validation Work Team was formed and a Delphi study was conducted to verify and gain consensus on professional and clinical competencies for NPs in emergency care.

This article discusses the challenge that educators have in assessing competency in APRN students, particularly with simulation.

This article outlines the Core Competencies of Midwifery set in place by ACNM. This publication serves as a template for Nurse mIdwifery education.

This article touches on a topic of particular interest to me, specifically how APRN's can help fill a critical shortage of primary care providers in HIV medicine. The article validates that APRN's (NP's) are more than capable of providing high quality care to those living with HIV. Moreover, we are well positioned to fill the provider shortage that is only expected to grow over the next decade and beyond.

As NPs, many of us who have not practiced as nurses, it might be difficult to get your foot in the door of that first job. This is a personal strategy that I came up with to try and help mitigate that for myself, I'm obviously hoping that it works! For those of us who know where we want to work, for me that's in HIV medicine, I think it's important to develop the competencies that your employer will be looking for when you walk in the door. This article does a nice job of laying those out for entry level NPs looking to get into HIV medicine. What I'm trying to do is add as many of these skills to my resume while I'm attending school. My hope is that will give me an edge over NPs that I'm competing with who may not have been in the specialty specific time. If you can identify your desired areas of practice then its just a matter of looking for opportunities to add to your skillset. Look for faculty that have a shared interest, see if you can work on a research project with them. Look for nursing organizations in that specialty. There are two HIV specific organizations for APRNs looking to get into HIV medicine (ANAC and AAHIV). Join them and start networking. Take as much CNE as you can in your specialty topic - much of its free and can be done online at your own pace.

This is an article from The Journal of Nurse Practitioners. The IOM is recommending a transition to practice (residency program) for new graduate nurse practitioners; along with a competency tool to assess the effectiveness of such program.

This article discusses the stressors that a novice NP may face in providing quality care. Many programs provide adequate content and clinical exposure, but mentorship may be an effective strategy for novice NPs to transition into the role of a competent healthcare provider.

An interesting article that opines about the DNP. Here's a fairly provocative quote: "When viewed together, doctorally prepared nurses do not spend the majority of their time in direct patient care, but rather in research (11%), education (32%), and administration (30%). With these demanding roles, they cannot be expected to maintain expert levels of clinical competence required for teaching APN students. While research and practice are critical components of nursing, each requires a different skill set and education."

Link is about broader gerontology nursing, but has nice history of how AGNP primary care role has developed. Good history summation on pgs. 4-7. Also has info on practice settings, competencies, and scope of practice.

Comprehensive overview of gerontological nursing.   

This article is about how important it is to articulate your role as a nurse. I love how they explain articulating your role as a nursing competency. I think this is a great article for this class as we learn what the APRN role is and how to articulate it to our inter professional teams. Nurse Educ Pract. 2013 Nov;13(6):519-23. doi: 10.1016/j.nepr.2013.02.014. Epub 2013 Mar 18.

My intended area of practice is in HIV nursing. In my last post I provided a link to the competencies needed to be an advanced practice nurse in the field, and I talked a little bit about steps I'm taking to close that gap. To hopefully move me along the continuum from novice to expert. I thought this article was interesting and provided a broader approach in how nurses might use residency program for exactly that purpose. The article talks about DNPs but it is no different for the MSN prepared nurse. It seems that residencies may become more the norm in the future - and that might be good for all, new nurses and patients alike.

In this article, author Lugo discusses the findings of her study relating limits on full practice authority for APRNs to issues of gender equality. She investigated the link between state support of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and laws in these states allowing APRNs full scope of practice and prescribing rights. Her study showed that states that have historically and currently supported the ERA in fact allow greater APRN scope of practice, and thus she draws conclusions about attitudes towards women's equality and the regulation of advanced practice nursing, which remains to be a woman-dominated profession.

In this May 2016 article published in the Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, Dr. Nancy Rudner Lugo argues that advanced practicing nursing viewed through a gendered perspective due to nursing's history as a predominantly female profession; because of this, APRNS in states that are less accepting of women's equality have a more narrow scope of practice. There is not currently a national-level evidence based method used to determine APRN scope, and is instead decided at the state level. The author seeks to explain the cause of the discrepancy between differing APRN scopes of practice in different states by comparing the APRN scope of practice between states that did and did not vote to pass the Equal Right Amendment, positing that states with cultural attitudes that are more equitable between genders reflect this at the legislative level, thus explaining the wider or full practice authority given to APRNs in these states. In conclusion, Lugo advocates for increasing the number of women in legislative positions, forming relationships between women's equality organizations and groups working towards expanded health care access, and emphasizing the skills and competency of APRNs in achieving positive patient health outcomes.

An article examining the effectiveness of high fidelity simulation on preparing APRN students for practice.