Family Nurse Practitioner Role

If you sit down at your computer and type the words “nurse practitioner” into a search engine like Google, your computer will quickly come up with the definition of nurse practitioner: “a nurse who is qualified to treat certain medical conditions without the direct supervision of a doctor.” Perhaps in a nutshell this is what a family nurse practitioner is meant to be. In reality, it is more complex than this definition makes it seem. The family nurse practitioner role was meant to be a middle ground between the nurse and the physician. The main difference being that nurse practitioners are granted more autonomy in treating patients with little to no physician supervision. The defined role of a family nurse practitioner is evolving every day,

Healthcare researchers point out that there are still inconsistencies in the nature of the role, its defined practice, and credentialing process requirements (Lowe, Plummer, O’Brien, & Boyd, 2012). The lack of consistency leads to confusion about the role and makes it more difficult to impose guidelines. This ultimately leads to inefficiency when the role of the family nurse practitioner does not properly fill in the medical gaps it is meant to cover. Clarity is needed in order to create regulations that provide consistency in the family nurse practitioner approach to health care. This would ensure that the nurse practitioner role had a proper benchmarking process, whereby practice standards can be met and maintained. This would likely lead to more confidence in the family nurse practitioner role and further establish family nurse practitioners as experienced nurses that are capable providers with a wide range of patient care services (Lowe, Plummer, O’Brien, & Boyd, 2012). Once this unity can be achieved, there can be a wider understanding of nursing in the global context and which will ultimately lead to more recognition of the family nurse practitioner role as a

The enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), 2010, has allowed millions of Americans who were previously uninsured to obtain health insurance and gain better access to health care services. This, coupled with the aging baby boomer population who will be needing more medical care, means that the medical field is facing a shortage in skilled health professionals. Some researchers have projected that by 2025 an additional 52,000 physicians will be needed to meet the increasing demand for primary care services (Poghosyan, Boyd, & Clarke,