How to Find a Nurse Practitioner Program Online

Finding CCNE or ACEN Accredited Nurse Practitioner Programs You Can Take Online
Are you ready to take your nursing career to the next level? After years as a registered nurse at the bedside honing your skills and developing a substantial knowledge base, it’s time to go back to school. Perhaps you have financial motivations; maybe you are looking for advancement opportunities and greater responsibility. Regardless of your motivation, the possession of a registered nurse license affords you the opportunity to advance your career with just a few years of classes and clinical experiences.
how to get an online np degree:
A Master of Science in Nursing degree is the minimum education required to become a nurse practitioner. All MSN programs for NPs include a concentration in a particular patient population focus. These means the decision to become an NP programs also involves deciding what patient population you want to work with before beginning your graduate program - family/individual across the lifespan, adult-gerontology, pediatrics, neonatal, women’s health/gender specific, or psychiatric-mental health.
As a nurse practitioner, your scope of practice will be expanded to include disease diagnosis and health assessment, which includes the ability to order diagnostic tests. In many states, you will also have the authority to develop treatment plans and prescribe medication without physician oversight. With this increased responsibility comes a significant increase in salary.
Your nurse practitioner program may be completed entirely online, in the classroom, or through a combination of both methods. But even if you earn your degree online you can expect your program to include advanced didactic coursework and significant hands-on learning in the clinical setting.
Once you graduate, you will sit for a national certification exam to become certified in the patient population that aligns with the focus of your graduate program. National certification is typically the final step to meeting all requirements for advanced practice RN licensure through your state board of nursing. As a nationally certified and state-licensed nurse practitioner, you will be an asset to the hospital, clinic, or established medical practice where you work, and you could even go on to start your own independent practice or join a partner practice with other NPs.
It is vital that you investigate the scope of practice for nurse practitioners in your state. In some states, nurse practitioners enjoy full autonomy and can practice and prescribe to the full extent of their knowledge and training without physician oversight of any kind. This would include the authority to prescribe all medications (including narcotics). In other states, this same level of authority is allowed, but only as long as you maintain a collaborative agreement with a licensed physician and can confer via teleconference. In states with the most restrictive laws, nurse practitioners can only diagnose illnesses, order diagnostics and develop treatment plans under the direct supervision of a collaborating physician (as in, in their office or hospital with the physician on-site) and must have their narcotic prescriptions approved by said collaborating physician.
MSN requirements, curriculum, and introduction to how to get an online NP degree
Unless you’re an ADN-educated nurse enrolling in an RN-MSN program or you have a bachelor’s in another field and are making a career change to nursing through a direct-entry MSN program, the standard requirement to enter an MSN program is a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
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How to Become a Nurse Practitioner AND What to Expect When You Get There!:
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