Competency
In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:
Evaluate the role and scope of practice of the MSN professional nurse
Overview
There are many factors that impact the nursing role and scope of practice. It is important for you to understand the boundaries of your practice as an MSN professional nurse. This ensures you are legally and ethically performing in your role. Nursing scope of practice includes procedures, actions, processes, laws, regulations, and licensure that apply to particular nursing roles.
Scenario
During your professional practice you may be asked to perform a task that is outside your scope of practice. In order to effectively respond at these times, you will first need to understand how to define your scope of practice. Though you are not fully detailing your scope of practice at this stage, you will explore contributing and regulatory factors that you will need to be aware of. These factors will enable you to define your scope of practice during both your clinical practice experiences and once you complete your MSN work. You need to be able to explain the legal extent of your practice and to understand the scope of other practitioners. This allows you to function effectively in interdisciplinary teams to affect positive patient outcomes.
You will create a concept map that explains all the factors that impact your scope of practice. Then you will select one of the following scenarios that seems most relevant to your future role. Note that some scenarios may be interchangeable with your role, so you may substitute if desired. Based on the scope of practice you have outlined, you will analyze the implications for clinical decision-making to guide what your next steps would be.
You, as the Nurse Executive Leader, are approached by the nurse manager in the surgical intensive care unit (SICU) with a recurring problem. A respiratory therapist frequently asks the bedside nurses to adjust the vent settings for a patient.
A parent brings her 4-year-old daughter in for a well-child visit and shares that her 2-year-old son is still pulling on his ear after seven days on Amoxicillin. She asks you, as the Family Nurse Practitioner, to write a prescription for a different antibiotic for her son.
Two staff nurses come to you, as the Patient Safety and Quality Officer, to report that the new O2 sat monitors are not functioning properly.
You, as the Population Health Nurse, receive a notice that there is an outbreak of measles in one of the daycare centers in town.
You, as the Nurse Educator, are supervising a student nurse who has failed to monitor her patient’s IV and the floor nurse has had to restart a new IV.
Directions
We recommend that you create your concept map using Microsoft PowerPoint. A template has been provided for you in the Supporting Materials section of this document to help get you started (a text-only version is also provided). However, there is no requirement for you to use the template and you have the option of developing a different format that works best for you. As you create, you may choose to illustrate each step of the analysis using a different slide or you could alternately combine multiple factors on a single slide. Each component must include a fully detailed written description, either on the slide or in the speaker notes section, and citations should be included as appropriate.
Address the following criteria as you complete this project.
MSN Role: Explain the MSN role according to your specialty track and support claims with specific evidence from at least one scholarly or professional source. Fully define your specialty role, including the overall responsibilities and the anticipated practice settings. This will ensure you have set the parameters for your future analysis. Address the following in your response.
Stakeholder Contributions: Evaluate stakeholder contributions in determining scope of practice and support claims with specific evidence from at least one scholarly or professional source. It is recommended that you start by considering your scope of practice broadly before specifically identifying the impacts of different stakeholders. As you work, think about how the stakeholders’ goal and interest is to protect the public. Be sure to address each of the following questions as you explore the impact of various stakeholders.
Spheres of Care: Evaluate elements of the MSN scope of practice within one sphere of care, and support your claims with specific evidence from at least one scholarly or professional source. You have already explored each sphere of care during previous modules; now it is time to select the sphere of care that you anticipate your MSN practice to be in. Remember the spheres of care can cross all practices, but you should choose the one that will be your primary focus. Then ask yourself, how is the scope of practice manifested in the sphere of care you selected? What is the nursing process as it might be carried out in this sphere when representing your anticipated MSN role?
Education, Training, Personal Competence, and Ethics: Analyze how education, training, personal competence, and ethics relate to scope of practice and support claims with specific evidence from at least one scholarly or professional source. Note that personal competence encompasses knowledge, skills, abilities, and judgements. Consider the following questions as you work:
Authentic Practice: Apply a scope of practice analysis to authentic practice and support claims with specific evidence from at least one scholarly or professional source. It is now time to take everything you have analyzed thus far in the creation of your concept map and apply it to a scenario that could occur in your professional practice. Select the most relevant scenario for your anticipated MSN role, from the options provided in the Scenario section of this document and illustrate its implications. Using the understanding you developed for your own scope of practice, explain how you would determine what your next steps will be. You do not need to describe the issue’s resolution. You just need to describe the decision-making process to get to the resolution. Be specific regarding the resources you would use.
What to Submit
To complete this project, you must submit the following:
Scope of Practice Concept Map. Submit your completed work as Microsoft PowerPoint slides. You may choose to organize your slides in a way that best represents the concepts you are exploring. Each component of your concept map should be described, either within the slide itself or through supporting information written in the speaker notes. Sources should be cited according to APA style.
