Scope of Practice

One thing that is important to remember is that scope of practice can be determined by numerous ways. Depending on the profession, depends on how the scope of practice is defined. “Scope of practice can be defined as all the accepted services provided by a particular profession” (Jirak, 2004). For example the scope of practice was created so the physicians work would not be confused with the assistants work because they are different types of jobs and duties. The assistants get things ready for the physicians, so they could quickly take care of the patients. The health care profession that I would be talking about is nursing. The reason I chose nursing is because my mom is a nurse and I am usually surrounded by them, so I know some of things that they do. The scope of practice for the health care providers let the nurses know what type of patient they can care for and the procedures they could do to them. Like I said before depending on what profession you are looking at depends on how the scope of practice is defined. For the receptionist their scope is pretty much the same because their scope of practice tells them who they can care for and the different type of procedures they can do. It also tells them the different kinds of activities they can do. When it comes to the medical records the nurse and the receptionist has different jobs to do. The nurses for example have to read what the doctor wrote and write it down on the patient’s medical record. They have to make sure what they are writing is accurate because if they make a mistake it most likely would cost them their job. One of the most important things that the nurses do daily is to check their patient’s vitals. I know my mom and all of the other nurses at her job do that every day as soon as they clock in at 7 am. Then every couple hours they do the same thing just to make sure everything is fine with the patient. Now when it comes to the receptionist their job is to know how to format the medical

References: Jirak, G. V. (2004). Scope of practice. In encyclopedia of health care management, sage. Retrieved on November 13, 2010 from: http://wf2dnvr11.webfeat.org/. Skurka, M. (2003). Health information management: principles of organization for health information systems. NJ: Prentice Hall. Guidelines for determining APN scope of practice. (2005). Retrieved on November 13, 2010 from: http://www.bon.state.tx.us/practice/apn-scopeofpractice.html.