Full Practice Authority for NPs is a significant legal issue that limits the role of NPs and affects health and care delivery. The range of activities that the nurse practitioner should practice is legally regulated by the licensing state and is a controversial issue in the medical community. Nurse practitioners must hold Registered Nurse (RN) licensure it the state in which they practice. However, unlike Registered Nurses, Nursing practitioners are advanced above the nursing licensure requirements. Nurse Practitioners are educated to give full range primary, specialty and acute healthcare services, including ordering and interpreting diagnostic tests, prescribing medications, diagnosing and treating chronic and acute conditions, educating and counseling patients. Currently, only 21 states’ legislation allows nurse practitioners to independently diagnose, treat, order and interpret tests and make …show more content…
It is unlikely that full practice for NPs will influence the physician practices negatively. According to a study by Horrocks et al. (2002), the quality, effectiveness, safety of care offered by NPs, shows that is a safe alternative to physician care. Thus, giving full practice to the Nursing professionals would not compromise the quality of health care but would enable the NPs fully participate in bettering health care provision.
Giving NPs full practice will encourage innovation in care delivery. The move will save the physicians time and reduce their workload. It is to enlarge the number of qualified health agile workforce that can respond to emergencies quickly (Mundinger et al. 2000). In essence, the NPs fight to legislatively expand their scope of practice will improve patient access to high-quality care, increase the healthcare professionals in regions where patients are geographically limited to quality