NURS 6560 – Advanced Practice Care Of Adults In Acute Care Settings II Assignment

Students in this course will advance their clinical competence in the care of patients in acute care settings by building on knowledge and skills gained in the NURS 6550. Through clinical practice, students will build confidence as they begin the transition from student to advanced practice nurse. 

Classroom activities and case studies will enable students to explore the complex healthcare system including multiple governmental, social and personal resources available to acutely ill adults across the age continuum. Clinical experiences in hospital settings will provide students with the continued opportunity to develop, implement, and evaluate management plans for adults and older adults with complex acute, critical, and chronic illness. 

The application of knowledge in the management of patients and the collaboration between the advanced practice nurse and the patient, family, and interprofessional healthcare team are emphasized. Acutely ill patients increasingly dominate the inpatient population, and research has shown that in these settings nurse practitioners provide high quality care, decrease length of stay, and improve patient and family satisfaction. Furthermore, the addition of a nurse practitioner to the health care team improves communication and overall patient care.

Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioners (AG ACNP) are needed to help assess and manage acutely ill patients within the inpatient/hospital setting and across hospital-to-clinic settings, including the emergency department, intensive care unit, specialty labs, acute and sub-acute care wards, specialty clinics, or any combination of the above.

The Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner can legally diagnose and treat medical conditions. In addition, some AG ACNPs provide direct patient management from admission to discharge in collaboration with the physician and other members of the health care team. AG ACNPs may also continue to monitor the patient as the patient moves into the outpatient setting to ensure successful transition after discharge and complete resolution of transition needs. The structure of the role depends upon the collaborative agreement with physicians and other members of the health care team.

UCSF’s AGACNP program remains the only one of its kind in Northern California. There are three areas of emphasis: critical care, cardio-pulmonary, and emergency department/trauma. However, the program is flexible enough to enable training within a diversity of hospitalized patient practice settings, such as but not limited to, internal medicine, transplant, cardiology, neurosurgical, oncology, and trauma.

 A minimum of two years adult acute care nursing experience in the hospital setting is required prior to applying to the program. Applicants are not required to have ICU or Emergency Department (ED) nursing experience, however, prior nursing experience in these settings is preferred if the ED or ICU are settings where the applicant wishes to precept while enrolled in the program.

The student receives academic and clinical training in a variety of areas, including advanced physical assessment, pathophysiology, differential diagnosis, pharmacology, patient care management, lab and chest X-ray interpretation, select invasive and noninvasive procedures, and education and research. The coursework is sequential and additive over seven quarters so full time study is required. 

On-line and/or distance learning are not available for this program and part time study is not an option. Graduates of this program exit with a degree and are master’s prepared nurse practitioners trained in the care of acutely ill patients with multiple complex problems. They typically work as nurse practitioners in settings that range from cardiology and the emergency room to ICU, nephrology, neurology, and surgery. Graduates are eligible to apply for national certification through the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses

(AACN) or the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Email Roxanne Garbez at Roxanne.garbez2@ucsf.edu if you have additional questions about the program. The acute care nurse practitioner (adult-gerontological focus) program prepares the student to provide health care to acutely and critically ill individuals and their families in a variety of health care settings. Upon completion of either the master’s program or the post-master’s certificate option, students will be eligible to take the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) – Adult-Gerontological Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (AGACNP) certification exam.

The acute care nurse practitioner (adult-gerontological focus) curriculum consists of courses totaling 44 semester credit hours. Of these, 14 credits are in nursing core courses consisting of theories and concepts in nursing practice, research, leadership, role development and health care policy. In addition, 30 credits in the area of acute and primary health care and related courses are required. The program culminates with a written comprehensive examination.

Clinical practice is available in a variety of settings – hospital emergency departments, critical and acute care hospital units, and primary health care settings. Preceptorship on a one-to-one basis is provided by nurse practitioners and physicians. Students manage a patient caseload with increasing independence as they progress in the program. The practicum experiences are planned with the student, taking into consideration the student’s interests, learning needs, employment plans, and acute care nurse practitioner competencies.

The Walden University Library is a fully online library. Walden’s librarians help students, by phone and on the web, to identify, locate, and obtain scholarly materials. They also work with students to improve their search skills in the electronic information environment.

Accessible through the Walden Library website and also through each student’s Walden university portal, the library contains many tutorials and handouts to help students make the best use of the library and their time.

The Walden University Library provides a number of electronic scholarly resources for students’ use. The library contains more than 130,704 electronic books and more than 51,498 full-text journals. Thoreau, the library’s multi database search tool, searches across all of the library’s resources. The library’s 82 databases focus on disciplines covered by Walden degree programs and include the following:

  • ABI/Inform Global
  • Berkeley Electronic Press Journals
  • BNA Labor and Employment Law Resource Center
  • Business Plans Handbooks
  • CINAHL Plus with Full Text
  • Cochrane Collection Plus
  • Communication and Mass Media Complete
  • CQ Researcher
  • DSM-IV and American Psychiatric Association Journals
  • Education Research Complete
  • Encyclopedias and Handbooks from Sage
  • ERIC
  • Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
  • Homeland Security Digital Library
  • IEEE Xplore Digital Library
  • International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center
  • LexisNexis Academic
  • MEDLINE
  • Mental Measurements Yearbook
  • OVID Nursing Journals
  • PolicyFile
  • Project Muse
  • ProQuest Criminal Justice Periodicals
  • ProQuest Dissertations and Theses with Full Text
  • ProQuest Nursing Journals
  • PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES
  • SAGE Journals
  • Science Direct
  • SocIndex with Full Text
  • Web of Knowledge