Roles and Responsibilities of DNP - Term Paper Example

The largest number of workers in the healthcare section is made up of nurses. Furthermore, the nursing practice is amongst the professions that are highly diversified since it addresses various sectors including public health, public policy, leadership, and clinical needs. Nonetheless, nurses have a high number of academic credentials starting from associate degrees to doctorate degrees (American Nurses Association, 2003). The mixture of degrees, titles, practice settings, and roles in the nursing field lead to the confusion amongst the many individuals including the nurses about how the degree of Doctorate Nursing Practice fits into nursing as a profession. Therefore, this paper addresses the roles and responsibilities of DNP prepared nurses and how nurses with this academic credential are different from the others.

The American Association of College of Nursing (AACN) in response to the report of the Institute of Medicine that was presented in 2001 known as Crossing the Quality Chasm, investigated the critical role of a nurse in both guaranteeing the best health care quality to clients and in the larger society (American Nurses Association, 2003). Nurses are required to carry out various duties such as coordinating the transitions of care, making clients become their own health's advocates and care transitions. Due to this, the AACN issued a position statement in support of the DNP practice as both the graduate degree for the preparation of nursing practice and the clinical Nursing's terminal degree. The new degree of DNP was based on the former Nursing doctorate, and it majored more on the competencies of practices other than the in-depth Ph.D. that focuses more on the academic studies (Longest, 2002). The DNP degree prepares learners to deal with the necessary skills required to transform care that is evidence based into practice, hence improving the care systems, and the outcome measures of groups of communities and patients. While the report of the AACN on the roadmap to DNP states that the DNP should be the entry-level degree required to pursue the advanced practice of nurses, many people still disagree on the time that this change should be implemented.

In many health care fields, professional duties are linked directly with the initials after their name. It is easy to recognize PharmDs are in the field of pharmacy, DDS work on teeth, and MHAs operate in the finance field. However, in the nursing career, the differences are not so clear because there are other many terms such NP, MSN, APRN, DNP which could be so confusing to a person. The terms are in many cases incorrectly used interchangeably, yet they do not have similar meanings (Longest, 2002). For instance, APRN is a title given to a nurse that is highly trained in a specific nursing role and meets the national certifications. Most of the nurses in this field have an MSN degree. Furthermore, these nurses may have other specializations in their training, which could make them adapt various titles such as CRSA, NP, CNM, and many others.

In the current society where the health sector is trying to come up with reforms while seeking to emphasize on the triple aim of minimizing costs, enhancing the experiences of the patients, and creating a better population health, the Nursing's duty as a part of a health care crew that is highly-functioning is more critical than it has ever been before (Institute of Medicine, 2002). Various professions have reacted to this requirement by raising the precision of academics in the professional degrees in other areas of care. A doctorate that is practiced-centered ensures that the professionals of nursing that are most skilled are equipped with similar academic precision as the other doctorate degrees professionals like the Podiatric Medicines doctors the dental surgery and medicine doctors, and the psychology doctors. In a universe of growing team-based collaborations and care across professionals, it is essential to increase the number of nurses that are doctorate trained to ensure clients have access to a nurse with proper skills in the field.

The DNP has been elected by the AACN as the final level in the practice of nursing. Therefore, the DNP has a critical part leadership, education, and mentorship. In clinical environments, DNPs act as advocates, role models, and problem solvers with the other kinds of professionals. A high number of DNP nurses in a medical field will boost the availability of nursing facility to train more nurses at the bachelors level (Institute of Medicine, 2002). Nurses having a doctorate will permit colleges to increase their wages and provide more room for advancement, letting academic reimbursement to be close to the clinical wage. As baby boomer caregivers close to their retirement high number s of doctorate nurses with special skills are vital to ensure that the nursing field is meeting the goal of the IOMs of doubling the nurses with doctorates and raising the total nurses having a bachelors degree by the year 2020.

Nursing pursuing a DNP degree can decide to emphasize their study on organizational and system leadership or advanced practice nursing. The ones that choose to focus on advanced practice nursing are necessitated to pursue coursework on physical and health assessments, pharmacology, and advanced physiology and pathophysiology (Larson, 2003). The ones opting to do organizational track on analysis and system level thinking need to undertake information technology, leadership in health care policy, and program evaluating and implementing. The AACN issued the requirements for DNP education for advanced practices of nursing in the year 2006. The DNPs practice focus is highly linked associated with developing evidence-driven and innovative nursing professionals (American Nurses Association, 2003). Although analytical processes for practice that is evidence-based is the third critical component that is stated by the AACN as a requirement of DNP education, the DNP differs from the meta theory, research, and theory of the Ph. D. Research carried out in the program of Ph. D doctoral focuses on developing new knowledge studies and formulating a dissertation.

From this article, it can be stated that the nursing field is essential since nurses compose a larger part of the health care unit. It is, therefore, necessary for the nurses to observe the set standards that they should attain to carry out their nursing practices competently. Based on this claims, the AACN seceded to set the DNP as the final academic level that could be attained by the nurses. The DNP level is that level which focuses on more than the intellectual part of academic which is part of the requirements in this field to the practical part, where it focuses on giving the clients the best medical care ever to satisfy their medical issues.

References

American Nurses Association. (2003). Nursing's social policy statement: second edition. Washington, DC: American Nurses Association.

Longest, B.B., Jr. (2002). Health policymaking in the United States: third edition. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press. The Association of University Programs in Health Administration/Health Administration Press.

Institute of Medicine. (2002). Care without coverage: Too little, too late, insuring health. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Larson, E.L. (2003). Minimizing disincentives for collaborative research. Nursing Outlook, 51, 267-271.