• Expanding the Role of RNs and Advanced Practice Nurses

    By Vance Hobbes With the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2012, some 30 million new patients have been able to access healthcare of which they were previously unable to. With health professionals already squeezed for time and unable to fit any more patients on their schedules, there must be some way of absorbing these additional patients into hospitals and clinics. How will this be possible then? An immediate solution to this problem is to open the opportunity for registered nurses and advanced practice nurses to take on some of the responsibilities previously exclusive to doctors. Now I am certainly not suggesting these nurses should take over…