Advanced Nurse Practitioners Role In Prescribing Assignment

Advanced Nurse Practitioners Role In Prescribing Assignment

Submission Instructions:

The paper is to be clear and concise and students will lose points for improper grammar, punctuation, and misspelling.
The paper should be formatted per current APA and 2-3 pages in length, excluding the title, abstract and references page.
Incorporate a minimum of 3 current (published within last five years) scholarly journal articles or primary legal sources (statutes, court opinions) within your work.
Complete and submit the assignment by 11:59 PM ET Sunday.
Late work policies, expectations regarding proper citations, acceptable means of responding to peer feedback, and other expectations are at the discretion of the instructor. Advanced Nurse Practitioners Role In Prescribing Assignment

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Advanced nurse practitioners (ANPs) are an integral part of the nursing practice since they negate proper treatment to patients and enable them to receive timely care when the world is facing a nursing shortage. Of the many roles advanced nurse practitioners have, these nurses must also engage in proper prescribing. Hence, the paper will assess the advanced nurse practitioners’ role in prescribing.

When ANPs or other nurse practitioners have prescribing authority, the task reflects more than providing the patients with the right medications. According to Zaccagnini and Pechacek (2019), healthcare providers mandated with a role to prescribe medication must acknowledge various pharmacological and pharmacokinetic features that drugs impose on a patient. Hence, the ANPs needs first to identify how different medication interacts with the patient body and different side effects to be in a position to advise the patient effectively. Hence, every Advanced Practice Nurse must ensure that before applying for certification to carry out independent prescriptions, they must have prior pharmacological agents knowledge concerning different life stages, particularly for patients needing multiple medications. For instance, most healthcare organizations that provide patient-centric services engage their nurses in regular workshops to increase their knowledge of drug prescriptions. Advanced Nurse Practitioners Role In Prescribing Assignment

ANPs also have a role in maintaining ethical prescriptions as they continue providing their services to the patients. Some of the requirements of ethical drug prescriptions include states prohibiting ANPs from prescribing medication to close family members and friends (Abraham et al., 2021). The reason for such requirements is the possibility of such a relationship clouding the nurse’s judgment. For instance, there was a time a close friend received the wrong medication from her friend who works as a nurse. The reason was that the nurse did not pay attention to the kind of drugs the clinician had recommended and was more concerned with pleasing the friend. However, since the medication harmed the patient, the healthcare facility faced a one-month ban from prescribing medication to the patients since the state laws prohibited family or close-friends prescriptions. Such an instance destroyed the hospital’s brand and good reputation. Hence, it is crucial for nurses to always put professionalism first than a personal relationship Advanced Nurse Practitioners Role In Prescribing Assignment.

ANPs have to ensure that they maintain patient safety and well-being during prescriptions. The main factors that can help nurses maintain such a role include beneficence, which requires the nurse to ensure that they engage in activities that benefit the patients (Gould & Bain, 2022). Also, nonmaleficence requires the nurses to avoid instances that can harm the patients. For example, in one healthcare facility near our home, there was an instance when a nurse prescribed the wrong medication to a young boy with an adult dosage. However, since the pharmacist was not also keen enough, the boy was administered adult medication. However, as the nurse was reviewing that day’s activity, it is when she realized that she had prescribed the wrong medication. Upon consulting with the pharmacists, the pharmacists confirmed that he had not changed the patient medication. In such a scenario, the nurse involved the healthcare management in reaching out to the patient and prescribing the right medication. At a point, the patient family wanted to hold a lawsuit against the hospital, but after consultations, they decided to let everything go. That means, despite the impact the medication error may have on the nurse or the healthcare organization, it is the nurse’s responsibility to let the patient become aware to prevent more harm.

In conclusion, advanced nurse practitioners have various roles in prescribing medication. The main roles include ensuring adequate knowledge before becoming certified to practice prescription independently. Another important role is in maintaining ethical prescription to prevent implicating their professionalism and ensuring that they report any error to avoid further implicating the patient health outcomes. Advanced Nurse Practitioners Role In Prescribing Assignment

References

Abraham, O., Szela, L., Thakur, T., Brasel, K., & Brown, R. (2021). Adolescents’ perspectives on prescription opioid misuse and medication safety. The Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 26(2), 133-143. https://doi.org/10.5863/1551-6776-26.2.133

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Gould, J., & Bain, H. (2022). Professional, legal and ethical dimensions of prescribing. Part 1: professional. Primary Health Care, 32(3). doi: 10.7748/phc.2022.e1773

Zaccagnini, M., & Pechacek, J. M. (2019). The doctor of nursing practice essentials: A new model for advanced practice nursing. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Advanced Nurse Practitioners Role In Prescribing Assignment

Abstract

Advanced nurse practitioners have an important role to play in the process of prescription. In some states and regions, advanced nurse practitioners have the authority to prescribe medications and controlled substances and offer medical services. Their role in such cases involves ensuring patient safety as they use these prescribed medications and manage the complications that may result from using these drugs. In addition, they need to provide patients with information concerning drug use, give clear and proper instructions on drug use, and observe ethics in drug use. Follow-up care must be done for patients prescribed opioid medications to avoid addiction and possible substance abuse. It is therefore important for advanced nurse practitioners to observe a high degree of competence in patient assessment, diagnosis and prescription of appropriate and effective medication.

Roles and Responsibilities Played by Advanced Nurse Practitioners in Prescribing

Advanced nurse practitioners play an important role in ensuring quality patient care and patient safety in medication use. These highly qualified professionals have various degrees of authority in making medication prescriptions and controlled substances, medical devices and offering medical services (Osho,2019). They need to understand their ethical obligations in addition to knowing the legal implications of medication prescription, especially considering the ongoing opioid crisis. The nurses can make autonomous decisions based on patient assessment, diagnosis and interpretation of the test results.

Ethical prescription is an important aspect that needs to be considered by advanced practice nurses when prescribing medications. With the continuous increase in the number of patients with lifestyle diseases and other infections, medication use has considerably increased. A person taking more medications is more likely to have a medication error (Duquesne University School of Nursing,2022). Advanced practice nurses, therefore, play a role in ethical prescription by examining each patient’s distinct needs before making a prescription.

Management of prescription errors is also an important role that advanced practicing nurses need to take into consideration. These errors can be life-threatening and must be managed with utmost care. The nurses should aim to prevent prescription errors by ensuring a proper evaluation and definition of the patient’s problem, determining the therapeutic objectives of the drug therapy and selecting an appropriate medication to manage the patient. The patient should also be provided with adequate information regarding the prescribed drug use. Some available tools, including prescribing Software and electronic drug references, should be used by the nurses to reduce prescription errors.

In cases of prescription errors, the nurses should be prompt in alleviating the harmful effects of the prescribed medication. They should explain to the patient how the error happened, explain the harmful effects of the error and give a step-by-step explanation of measures that will be taken to ensure that such errors do not occur in future. In such cases, monitoring the patient is vital before, during and after administering the medication antidote.

The opioid crisis has resulted in a drug addiction epidemic, which has claimed thousands of lives in many parts of the world. As much as advanced practice nurses have autonomy in medication prescriptions, and some states even legally authorize them to prescribe controlled substances such as opioid pain killers, care should be taken in prescribing and administering these drugs (Koienga & Wilkinson, 2017). Before prescribing and administering the drugs, advanced practice nurses need to conduct a comprehensive pain assessment and probe the patient for past efforts to manage the pain, examine a range of treatment options besides the use of opioids and educate the patient on the risks associated with opioid use. A vigilant follow-up should be conducted afterwards to mitigate possible abuse of the drugs and prevent cases of addiction.

Advanced nurse practitioners are in a better position to ensure medication safety by aligning practice, developing policies and conducting research to optimize treatment and minimize adverse drug events. Such policies also ensure the safe use of pain medications and minimize the risk of opioid use. Introducing policies and guidelines regarding medication safety provide proper channels for addressing issues that may arise from prescription errors and inappropriate use of pain medications. As a result, patient safety is observed in all stages of prescription.

References

Duquesne University School of Nursing. 2022. APRN’s Role in Ethical Prescribing | Duquesne University. [online] Available at: <https://onlinenursing.duq.edu/blog/aprns-role-responsibility-ethical-prescribing/> [Accessed 2 July 2022].

Osho, Y. (2019). The Role of the Advanced Nurse Practitioner. Retrieved 2 July 2022, from https://www.independentnurse.co.uk/blogs-article/the-role-of-the-advanced-nurse-practitioner/213167/

Kooienga, S., & Wilkinson, J. (2017). RN Prescribing: An Expanded Role for Nursing. Nursing Forum, 52(1), 3-11. https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12159