Specialization and Credentialing in Nursing Revisited: Understanding the Issues, Advancing the Profession

Specialization and Credentialing in Nursing Revisited: Understanding the Issues, Advancing the Profession This book sheds light on a recurring issue in nursing: the specialization and credentialing of nurses. Substantial changes in educational expectations and certification requirements, and the proliferation of nursing specializations have sparked debates on appropriate credentials, scope of practice, and state-by-state regulation of nursing scope of practice. With an emphasis on advanced practice, this book frames the issues around nursing specialization, subspecialization, and credentialing in a manner that will inform all parties involved. The authors examine the past and present of the issues, including such key topics as: The ongoing conceptual and practical debates about specialties and subspecialties on both basic and advanced practice levels. The questions and challenges about what constitutes appropriate credentials and what scope of practice and privileges should be associated with them. The numerous new educational curricula that prepare APRNs and the increasing pressure by state boards of nursing to control entry into APRN practice. The increasing confusion about the respective and complementary roles of credentialing agents. The mismatches that can occur between graduate curricula and certification and licensing requirements. Finally, the book offers the profession a unity model and pathway to create a consistent and supported methodology to define specialty and subspecialty practice, as well as a call to action. The lead author of this book, Margretta Madden Styles, spent much of her career framing and outlining specialty practice. Indeed, this current volume builds on her influential 1989 book, On Specialization in Nursing: Toward a New Empowerment, which described and analyzed the growth of specialization and the power of credentialing. Included as an appendix here, that book also informed a 2004 meeting of APRN st