Case study
In this scenario, there are many ways that one can argue against the physicians without provoking a humongous argument at the table for the rest of the evening. My approach in this case would be directed towards explaining to the physicians the number of lives that could be saved by nursing practitioners if they were not available to save a life. I would also acknowledge the fact that physicians receive extensive and diverse medical education, and clinical experience. However, I would not fail to mention that APNs provide cost-effective, high-quality care according to Poghosyan, Boyd & Knutson research (2014). They are trained to provide the needed care at affordable cost to meet the healthcare demands of the client. When comparing them with other healthcare professionals such as physicians, both the independently practicing nurse practitioners, as well as physicians, provides safe care with acceptable management.
For instance, a study published by Buerhaus et al. (2014) indicated that both physicians and nursing practitioners implement similar methods when treating and providing care to patients. Both the APNs and physicians poses similar strategies in the management of the condition, and results in positive health outcome of the patients. The study also went ahead to shown that APNs also relate to patients more positively. It suggested that APNs also develop and provide better communication strategies with the patients as compared to the physicians. Another study conducted with the objective of comparing the similarities and differences between the APNs and physicians showed similar results. According to LM (2014) both the physicians and the APNs provide high-quality healthcare services that improve the health outcome of the patients. As a matter of fact, this study also suggested that some APNs services resulted in high patients satisfaction score compared to other the services of the physicians.
In closure, some physicians are against APNs conducting independent diagnoses from the lack of insufficient knowledge from the standpoint to the physicians concerning the scope of practice of the APNs. Major physicians organizations such as American Medical Association (AMA) backlash regarding the scope of practice of APNs. The 505 physicians interviewed, over 70% wanted the APNs to function to their fullest extent of the licensure and education (Hain& Fleck, 2014). The most important are to ensure that the role of APNs is uniform across the country so that the physicians can understand the role of the physicians. Besides, all the patient needs is to be treated competitively and recover fully from an illness. If APNs can help them achieve that, and there is no doubt that they can, there should be no reason why they should not be allowed to function as independent health care providers.
References
Buerhaus, P. I., DesRoches, C. M., Dittus, R., & Donelan, K. (2015). Practice characteristics of primary care nurse practitioners and physicians. Nursing Outlook, 63(2), 144-153.
LM, H. (2014). Barriers to NP Practice that Impact Healthcare Redesign. – PubMed – NCBI. Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 10 April 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26824837
Poghosyan, L., Boyd, D., & Knutson, A. (2014). Nurse Practitioner Role, Independent Practice, and Teamwork in Primary Care. The Journal For Nurse Practitioners, 10(7), 472-479. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2014.05.009
