Influence of Regulatory Agencies on Nursing Practice, Essay Example

Regulatory agencies exert both positive and negative consequences on the nursing practice environment. Specifically, regulatory agencies provide practitioners with the tools necessary to provide quality care to their patients. In addition, these procedures help nurses understand how to act ethically and professionally, which allows them to achieve greatness in their career. On the other hand, it is challenging to remain aware of new regulatory procedures and it is typically even more challenging to incorporate them into practice. Therefore, the implementation of regulatory procedures requires that nurses receive the training to carry out these new expectations, which can slow down their ability to attend to patient care (Mukamel et al., 2012).

In spite of the difficulties that regulatory agencies can cause, it is important to consider that these agencies are necessary because there is a need for medical professionals to be continually involved in quality improvement. This is especially the case for the nurse because nurses tend to spend more time with the patient than other qualified health professionals. Advanced practices nurses should therefore be aware of regulatory changes and become responsible for informing their co-workers of the relevant changes. Furthermore, these individuals could benefit the health care organization by becoming actively involved in the leadership necessary to enact these changes in practice (Iglehart, 2013). Changing standards and procedures requires a deep understanding of the policy change in addition to implications for practice. Therefore, it is helpful for advanced practice nurses to delve deeply into these issues to determine how they can be translated to benefit patient care. Overall, regulatory agencies should be seen as beneficial because even though new regulations are difficult to adjust to, their decisions are evidence-based and necessary to follow to enact quality patient care.

References

Iglehart JK. (2013). Expanding the Role of Advanced Nurse Practitioners — Risks and Rewards. N Engl J Med, 368:1935-1941.

Mukamel DB, Weimer DL, Harrington C, Spector W, Ladd H, Li Y. (2012). The Effect of State Regulatory Stringency on Nursing Home Quality. Health Services Research, 47(5): 1791–1813.