Based on last week’s reading, you now have an idea of the role of the APRN, and legal/professional issues in prescribing. As a future nurse practitioner, you have the authority, based on your state nurse practice act, to prescribe medications for the patients for whom you will provide care, and the responsibility of prescriptive authority is more than just simply writing a prescription correctly.
Discuss the role of advanced practice nursing in safe prescribing and 3 prescribing barriers for APRNs.
Answer preview
However, APRNs face prescribing barriers. Regulation is one prescribing barrier for APRNs (Bosse et al., 2017). This barrier differs across states in scope and applicability. The barrier limits APRNs in prescribing all drugs present in the medical field, implying that APRNs can’t prescribe a new drug that is absent from the collaborative agreement. Also, the state-level barrier limits APRNs to fully utilize their knowledge and training to solve problems in the healthcare systems related to prescriptive authority. This implies that the barrier increases cost of healthcare and limits access to health, especially in underserved areas and populations, which ultimately leads to poor healthcare outcomes.
