Florida Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice Essay
Review your state\’s scope of practice and address 3 areas that you were not aware you can do as a licensed provider in your state.
A major area that nurse practitioners in Florida can practice as licensed practitioners is primary care. By serving as primary care providers under chapters 458, 459 and 464 of Florida’s Nursing Practice Act, one can provide common medical services to communities and patients without making referrals to other healthcare providers in general or family practice (Unruh et al., 2018). Florida Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice Essay. However, in primary care all nurse practitioners are mandatorily supervised by physicians. While under the supervision of physicians, nurse practitioners are allowed to prescribe controlled substances from schedule II-V. Basing on the fact that this is one of the states that faces a serious shortage of primary care physicians, this prescriptive authority under a physician’s supervision is a major setback (Kung & Rudner, 2015). However, this does not mean that the supervising physician must be available in person in the location of practice. They can be contacted through phone as a form of consultation. Florida Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice Essay
Another area is that of mental health where primary mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNP) specifically provide mental health services to families and individual patients in different settings. They execute a wide range of duties such as: making diagnoses, giving therapy, prescribing drugs for patients with psychiatric illnesses or problems in substance abuse (Poghosyan, Boyd & Clarke, 2016). In other instances, PMHNPs can play the role of educators or consultants for staff and families. In order to become a PMHNP, one must complete a BSN in nursing followed by an MSN in mental health.
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The last area is that of family medicine where we have Family Nurse Practitioners (FNP). FNPs in Florida manage chronic and acute illnesses, conduct physical exams and order diagnostic procedures starting from childhood to adulthood (Neff et al., 2018). Just like other NPs, FNPs need to be registered nurses and licensed by the State’s nursing board to practice as a NP. Florida Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice Essay
References
Kung, Y. M., & Rudner Lugo, N. (2015). Political advocacy and practice barriers: A survey of Florida APRNs. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 27(3), 145-151.
Neff, D. F., Yoon, S. H., Steiner, R. L., Bejleri, I., Bumbach, M. D., Everhart, D., & Harman, J. S. (2018). The impact of nurse practitioner regulations on population access to care. Nursing outlook, 66(4), 379-385.
Poghosyan, L., Boyd, D. R., & Clarke, S. P. (2016). Optimizing full scope of practice for nurse practitioners in primary care: A proposed conceptual model. Nursing outlook, 64(2), 146-155.
Unruh, L., Rutherford, A., Schirle, L., & Brunell, M. L. (2018). Benefits of Less Restrictive Regulation of Advance Practice Registered Nurses in Florida. Nursing outlook, 66(6), 539-550. Florida Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice Essay
