Violeta Lopez
(Modified Plenary Session Speech presented in the 14th Annual Nursing Conference:
"Advanced Nursing Practice")
Abstract
The advanced nurse practitioner movement in Australia is relatively new and has developed due to changing expectations of the Australian community, continuous changes in the delivery of health care, expanding role of the nurse and introduction of new technologies, both medical and information. While the role of nurse practitioners (NP) was developed in the USA and Canada approximately thirty years ago, the role has been introduced in Australia in the last five to ten years. Nurse practitioners are registered nurses who have additional knowledge and skills in their area of specialty gained through organized educational program and are certified by the Board of Nursing to engage in practice as an advanced practice nurse. The title, nurse practitioner is protected in legislation in the Nurse Practice Act. Services provided by advanced nurse practitioners occur in many models of health care delivery. The nurse practitioner's role is emerging and will continue to change overtime. Currently, different states and territory in Australia are working independently and have different rules and regulations with regards to endorsements of the title and the roles of the NP. This paper aims to explore the development of advanced nursing practice in Australia including educational requirements, accreditations and roles of the nurse practitioners as well as legislative changes of the different Acts relating to nursing practice.
Key words: Accreditation, Australia, nurse practitioner