Influence of State Board Nursing Practice Standards and Governmental Policies on the Impact of Heart Disease on the Quality of Care, Patient Safety, and Costs to the System and Individual

Each state’s nursing board in the U.S. has its own nursing practice standards guided by the Nursing Practice Act (NPA). NPA was developed to define and act as a standard regulation for the scope of practice for nurses across all states. Revisions are made to the NPA to expand the practice authority for nurses based on health care system demands as well as on the basis of the competence of the nurses. For instance, various boards of nursing in a majority of states have been revising the NPA within their states to suspend the existing practice restrictions and allow full practice authority for nurse practitioners (NPs) in the wake of the COVID-19 health emergency (American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 2022). There has been a relationship between patients with cardiovascular disease and an increased mortality risk, hence the demand for care services (Bansal, 2020). According to Moore et al. (2020), the revisions to the NPA allowing for full NP practice authority expand the scope of practice for NPs, hence helping meet the growing demands for NP service while improving access to quality health care services. Further, the practice standards ensure that NPs, with their expanded scope of practice, follow the boards’ directives on patient care to ensure patients have access to quality and safe healthcare services.

Expanding the scope of practice for NPs has been proven to impact patient safety, quality of care, and care costs. The revision of the NPA and granting NPs full practice authority eliminates the requirements for physician supervision with benefits on the available practice hours for both the physicians and the NPs, with a proven effect on decreasing the costs of care (Moore et al., 2020). Evidence on the use of full-practice NPs within various healthcare settings showed that NPs improve the accessibility and utilization of care services in which the full practice NPs improve care quality outcomes, the safety of care, and cost-effectiveness within care settings more than physicians (Geller & Swan, 2021).

The standards and policies of the board of nursing in my state will guide my actions in addressing care quality, patient safety, and costs to the system and individuals in several ways. For instance, I will adhere to and practice as per the board’s permitted scope of practice to ensure that I do not engage in practices beyond my knowledge. My actions and decisions on patient care will also be guided by the existing standards and policies on caring for patients with heart disease. Additionally, the state’s policies on the nursing scope of practice allow for its expansion with further development of my nursing competencies. As a BSN-prepared nurse, I will have increased my competence level and my ability to provide quality primary care services safely. Therefore, the state policies allow for an expanded scope of practice for me and help improve the number of qualified primary care providers to adequately meet the demands of the population with positive impacts on care quality, the safety of patients, and costs of care as evidence by Geller and Swan (2021).