Question Description

Nursing is a very highly regulated profession. There are over 100 boards of nursing and national nursing associations throughout the United States and its territories. Their existence helps regulate, inform, and promote the nursing profession. With such numbers, it can be difficult to distinguish between BONs and nursing associations, and overwhelming to consider various benefits and options offered by each.

Both boards of nursing and national nursing associations have significant impacts on the nurse practitioner profession and scope of practice. Understanding these differences helps lend credence to your expertise as a professional. In this Assignment, you will practice the application of such expertise by communicating a comparison of boards of nursing and professional nurse associations. You will also share an analysis of your state board of nursing.

To Prepare:

Assume that you are leading a staff development meeting on regulation for nursing practice at your healthcare organization or agency.

Discussion: Nursing and State-Level Regulations

Review the NCSBN and ANA websites to prepare for your presentation.
The Assignment: (9- to 10-slide PowerPoint presentation)

Develop a 9- to 10-slide PowerPoint Presentation that addresses the following:

Describe the differences between a board of nursing and a professional nurse association.
Describe the geographic distribution, academic credentials, practice positions, and licensure status of members of the board for your specific region/area.(Maryland)
Who is on the board?
How does one become a member of the board?
Describe at least one federal regulation for healthcare.
How does this regulation influence delivery, cost, and access to healthcare (e.g., CMS, OSHA, and EPA)?
Has there been any change to the regulation within the past 5 years? Explain.
Describe at least one state regulation related to general nurse scope of practice.
How does this regulation influence the nurse’s role?
How does this regulation influence delivery, cost, and access to healthcare?
Describe at least one state regulation related to Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs).
How does this regulation influence the nurse’s role?
How does this regulation influence delivery, cost, and access to healthcare?
Include Speaker Notes on Each Slide (except on the title page and reference page)

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.

Post a comparison of at least two APRN boards of nursing regulations in your state/region with those of at least one other state/region. Describe how they may differ. Be specific and provide examples. Then, explain how the regulations you selected may apply to Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) who have the legal authority to practice within the full scope of their education and experience. Provide at least one example of how APRNs may adhere to the two regulations you selected. 

The nurse practitioners are registered nurses with additional skills and preparation in psycho-social assessment, physical diagnosis, and health-illness needs management in a healthcare setting (Arifkhanova, 2018). They are trained in a program that fits the board’s standard as defined in the California Code of Regulations, CCR, 1484 Standards of Education (Nursing, 2022). 

In California, Nurse Practitioners do not retain an added scope of practice outside the regular RN scope and should depend on standardized procedures for approval to conduct overlapping medical processes (CCR Section 1485) (Nursing, 2022). Section 2725 of the Nursing Practice Act (NPA) controls nursing functions necessary to provide primary health care, which does not need standardized procedures (Nursing, 2022). For example, mental and physical assessment, restorative measures, disease prevention, the performance of immunization techniques, skin tests, and blood withdrawal, as well as the power to begin emergency procedures. Nurse Practitioners often ask if they need standardized techniques. The answer is that they do when completing overlapping medical procedures. Standardized procedures are the permitted authority to surpass the standard scope of RN practice. Without standardized procedures, the nurse practitioner is legally vulnerable, nonetheless of having been certified as an RN who has obtained added education and skills as a certified nurse practitioner. 

The nurse with a valid RN license given by Alabama for advanced practice and specialty certification is qualified to practice advanced practice nursing (APN). It is characterized into four classes: certified nurse-midwife (CNM), certified registered nurse practitioner (CRNP), clinical nurse specialist (CNS), and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) (Bosse et al., 2017). In Alabama, a nurse practitioner only works under a doctor’s supervision. They are not allowed to prescribe to an individual who is not their patient. In Alabama, APNs have a variety of certifications. APNs should have a credited master’s degree or post-certificate. To maintain their credential, APNs should receive national certification from a board-accredited certifying agency. For these, APNs have several certification agencies. The APN license should be renewed after every two years. For example, legislation made it possible that after finishing three years of nursing practice or a unique program approved by the Alabama Board, APRNs can practice independently (Hart et al., 2020). 

References 

Arifkhanova, A. (2018). The impact of nurse practitioner scope-of-practice regulations in primary care. https://doi.org/10.7249/rgsd396 

Bosse, J., Simmonds, K., Hanson, C., Pulcini, J., Dunphy, L., Vanhook, P., & Poghosyan, L. (2017). Position statement: Full Practice Authority for advanced practice registered nurses is necessary to transform primary care. Nursing Outlook, 65(6), 761–765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2017.10.002 

Hart, L., Ferguson, R., & Amiri, A. (2020). Full scope of practice for Alabama Nurse Practitioners: Act Now. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 16(2), 100–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2019.10.016 

Nursing, C. B. of R. (2022). Publications2. California Board of Registered Nursing. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.rn.ca.gov/forms/pubs.shtml