Ethical Issues in Advanced Practice Nursing - Assignment Example

After querying an advanced practice nurse, the decision on whether to regard a patient’s autonomy in emergency cases emerged as a major ethical issue. This issue relates to ethical principles of beneficence and autonomy and the teleological ethical theory. This is because a patient that has been involved in an emergency, such as a car accident, might not be able to make necessary decisions on the kind of acute care they may need to survive and the nurse may feel obliged to act fast in order to save such a patient’s life (Kjervik & Brous, 2010).

Responding to violence is another issue that the advanced practice nurse highlighted as common in his practice. According to the nurse, some patients or patients’ associates may turn hostile or physical at worst, especially when a health worker reveals certain disturbing information to them such as the loss of a loved one or the failure of a surgical procedure done on a person close to them. The issue is related to the ethical principle of nonmaleficence because the nurse may have to decide between retaliating and upholding professionalism (Kjervik & Brous, 2010).

Understanding the concerns of the advanced practice nurse provides me with an insight into the complexities involved in adjudicating similar ethical issues in my practice. The understanding demonstrates to me the need to be prudent in my conduct.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

An issue facing the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act is the increased backlog of patients that physicians have to attend to due to the expansion of medical coverage that has accrued from the implementation of the act. The shortage of nurses in the U.S. accentuates the problem of this issue. While expanding coverage to uninsured Americans is good, physicians’ increased backlog might delay patients’ access to care because of an inadequate healthcare workforce. A legal issue surrounding the increased backlog of patients for the few available physicians is the challenge to expand the scope of practice for non-physician health professionals in order to help reduce the backlog. Laws regulating the scope of practice of health practitioners have always required that physicians supervise the practice of other non-physician practitioners. This policy will provide a window for me as an advanced practice nurse to exercise my specific role complementing that of physicians (LeBuhn & Swankin, 2010).

One of the changes that I would make to the Affordable Care Act is to expand the role of advanced practice nurses by charging them with the management of health homes. Advanced practice nurses have the capacity to run these homes efficiently (Medicaid.gov, 2014). Another change that I would instigate in the policy is to provide a framework through that would allow the public health system to be actively involved in partnership initiatives that promote health in the community. 

Ethical issues encompassed in the project of studying whether treating hypertension using JNC guidelines reduces the future risk of cardiovascular diseases

One of the ethical issues in this project will be the treatment of hypertension patients who might not afford antihypertensives or other interventions as may be deemed appropriate. Both pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions will come at a monetary cost and it is important to come up with ways of circumventing the likely lack of economic affordability (Gaziano, 2007). Finally, a second ethical issue is the likely conflict of values between a potentially effective intervention and the value system of patients. There will be a need to involve the patient in the choice of the appropriate intervention.