AACN clinical issues
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AACN clinical issues · Feb 1997
ReviewAcute-care nurse practitioners: 'strangers in a strange land'.
In 1961, Heinlein described a "stranger" from another planet struggling to comprehend and integrate the cultural idiosyncracies of earthlings in his adopted land. One could compare that situation with what confronts acute-care nurse practitioners (ACNPs) as they embark into the practitioner's world of acute care. Rather than embrace the expensive and fragmented patient-care world through collaboration with its "strangers," ACNPs would benefit from clinging to elements of their own native nursing culture and become "nesters" rather than "perchers" in the quest for improved health care.
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AACN clinical issues · Feb 1997
ReviewCredentialing and privileging: insight into the process for acute-care nurse practitioners.
Acute-care nurse practitioners must be knowledgeable of the mechanisms whereby their scope of practice is defined and regulated, and through which professional competence is ensured. The mechanisms whereby hospitals determine scope and practice parameters is through credentialing and the delineation of clinical privileges. ⋯ Acute-care nurse practitioners are encouraged to negotiate for delineation of clinical privileges that are consistent with their professional and legal scope of practice, educational and individual capabilities, and the safe delivery of quality patient care. It is important that the process not be misused to erect barriers to practice, resulting in underserving of patient and organizational needs.