Regulating Professional Practice
Compare the roles of state board of nursing with the role of professional organizations for Illinois in regulating professional practice. What are the major methods of credentialing? List the benefits and weaknesses of each method from the standpoint of protecting the public and the protection of the professional scope of practice.
To develop an understanding of “regulating professional practice”, one must have an understanding of the difference between a state board nurse and a professional organization. A state board nurse is a nurse that has a license to practice in a specific state and needs to follow that state’s laws and jurisdiction while carrying out their duties. Professional organizations are led by a board of directors and different nursing associations can be led by them (Willgerodt et al., 2018). Every state has its board of nurses which regulates the nurse practice throughout that state. The board ensures that the Nursing Practice Act is carried out in each state by providing an outline of duties, scope for nursing, and the necessities for acquiring the nursing license. Professional organizations aid in the promotion of advanced health facilities, research, and advocating the safe medical practice (Bijani et al., 2019).
The nursing credentials have seven essential approaches to ensure that credible individuals enter the nursing profession. These steps have been recognized by American Nurses Association (ANA), these include; registration, accreditation, recognition, licensure, approval, charter, and certification. Acquiring certification and license is the most important among these seven requirements as these make ensures that all nurses have reached a certain level of knowledge before they are placed in a professional setting. These proper procedures also make sure that drug addicts and mentally unstable individuals that may pose harm to their selves and others, are not able to pass the nursing exams. This also makes the licensure procedure relevant in protecting and defining the role of licensed nurses and non-licensed nurses. However; the weakness of licensure is that there is a lack of mutual understanding of different nursing practices. This can make monitoring of different nursing practices ineffective. Additional knowledge and training can be acquired through different certifications which allow gaining maximum excellence in the field of nursing which cannot be acquired through just licensing (Pillai et al., 2018). The problem with certification is that it is difficult to select which organization or groups should test the individual for licensing. These procedures are extremely important in regulating the standards of professional practice in the medical field.
References
Bijani, M., Tehranineshat, B., & Torabizadeh, C. (2019). Nurses’, nursing students’, and nursing instructors’ perceptions of professional values: A comparative study. Nursing Ethics, 26(3), 870–883. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733017727153
Pillai, S., Manister, N. N., Coppolo, M. T., Ducey, M. S., & McManus-Penzero, J. (2018). Evaluation of a Nurse Residency Program. Journal for Nurses in Professional Development, 34(6), E23. https://doi.org/10.1097/NND.0000000000000499
Willgerodt, M. A., Brock, D. M., & Maughan, E. D. (2018). Public School Nursing Practice in the United States. The Journal of School Nursing, 34(3), 232–244. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059840517752456
