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How to become Nurse Practitioner in 2024

Nurse Practitioner Diagnose and treat acute, episodic, or chronic illness, independently or as part of a healthcare team. May focus on health promotion and disease prevention. May order, perform, or interpret diagnostic tests such as lab work and x rays. May prescribe medication. Must be registered nurses who have specialized graduate education.

Nurse Practitioner is Also Know as

In different settings, Nurse Practitioner is titled as

  • ACNP (Acute Care Nurse Practitioner)
  • Adult Nurse Practitioner
  • Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN)
  • ARNP Specialist (Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Specialist)
  • Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP)
  • Family Practice Certified Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner
  • Gastroenterology Nurse Practitioner
  • Nurse Practitioner (NP)
  • Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP)
  • Women's Health Care Nurse Practitioner

Education and Training of Nurse Practitioner

Nurse Practitioner is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Nurse Practitioner

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Nurse Practitioner

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Nurse Practitioner

Training Required for Nurse Practitioner

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Nurse Practitioner in different industries are

What Do Nurse Practitioner do?

  • Educate patients about self-management of acute or chronic illnesses, tailoring instructions to patients' individual circumstances.
  • Schedule follow-up visits to monitor patients or evaluate health or illness care.
  • Counsel patients about drug regimens and possible side effects or interactions with other substances, such as food supplements, over-the-counter (OTC) medications, or herbal remedies.
  • Order, perform, or interpret the results of diagnostic tests, such as complete blood counts (CBCs), electrocardiograms (EKGs), and radiographs (x-rays).
  • Analyze and interpret patients' histories, symptoms, physical findings, or diagnostic information to develop appropriate diagnoses.
  • Diagnose or treat acute health care problems, such as illnesses, infections, or injuries.
  • Diagnose or treat chronic health care problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
  • Diagnose or treat complex, unstable, comorbid, episodic, or emergency conditions in collaboration with other health care providers as necessary.
  • Treat or refer patients for primary care conditions, such as headaches, hypertension, urinary tract infections, upper respiratory infections, and dermatological conditions.
  • Consult with, or refer patients to, appropriate specialists when conditions exceed the scope of practice or expertise.
  • Detect and respond to adverse drug reactions, with special attention to vulnerable populations such as infants, children, pregnant and lactating women, or older adults.
  • Develop treatment plans, based on scientific rationale, standards of care, and professional practice guidelines.
  • Perform primary care procedures such as suturing, splinting, administering immunizations, taking cultures, and debriding wounds.
  • Perform routine or annual physical examinations.
  • Prescribe medications based on efficacy, safety, and cost as legally authorized.
  • Provide patients with information needed to promote health, reduce risk factors, or prevent disease or disability.
  • Recommend diagnostic or therapeutic interventions with attention to safety, cost, invasiveness, simplicity, acceptability, adherence, and efficacy.
  • Recommend interventions to modify behavior associated with health risks.
  • Prescribe medication dosages, routes, and frequencies, based on such patient characteristics as age and gender.
  • Advocate for accessible health care that minimizes environmental health risks.
  • Provide patients or caregivers with assistance in locating health care resources.
  • Maintain complete and detailed records of patients' health care plans and prognoses.
  • Read current literature, talk with colleagues, or participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in nursing.
  • Keep abreast of regulatory processes and payer systems, such as Medicare, Medicaid, managed care, and private sources.
  • Maintain current knowledge of state legal regulations for nurse practitioner practice, including reimbursement of services.
  • Maintain departmental policies and procedures in areas such as safety and infection control.
  • Supervise or coordinate patient care or support staff activities.

Qualities of Good Nurse Practitioner

  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.

Tools Used by Nurse Practitioner

  • Angiocaths
  • Apnea monitors
  • Argon lasers
  • Arterial blood gas monitoring equipment
  • Arterial line catheters
  • Automated external defibrillators AED
  • Back braces
  • Bilevel positive airway pressure BiPAP ventilators
  • Binocular light compound microscopes
  • Biopsy punches
  • Blood drawing syringes
  • Carbon dioxide CO2 lasers
  • Cardiac monitors
  • Cardiopulmonary resuscitation CPR face shields
  • Chest tubes
  • Crash carts
  • Crutches
  • Diagnostic tuning forks
  • Digital medical thermometers
  • Doppler ultrasound equipment
  • Electrocardiography EKG machines
  • Electronic blood pressure monitors
  • Electrosurgical cauterization machines
  • Endotracheal ET tubes
  • Epidural catheters
  • Evacuated blood collection tubes
  • Fiberoptic endoscopes
  • Fiberoptic laryngoscopes
  • Flexible sigmoidoscopes
  • Glucometers
  • Halo traction equipment
  • Handheld nebulizers
  • Head immobilization devices
  • Hemodynamic monitors
  • Hemoglobin analyzers
  • Holter monitors
  • Hypodermic syringes
  • Incentive spirometers
  • Intra-aortic balloon pumps IABP
  • Intracranial pressure monitors
  • Intravenous IV administration sets
  • Intravenous IV cutdown trays
  • Intravenous IV infusion pumps
  • Intubation sets
  • Lancets
  • Laptop computers
  • Lower extremity braces
  • Mechanical intermittent positive pressure ventilators
  • Mechanical stethoscopes
  • Medical examination protective gloves
  • Medical scales
  • Microhematocrit centrifuges
  • Mosquito hemostats
  • Multi-line telephone systems
  • Multiple lumen central line catheters
  • Nasal catheters
  • Nasal suctioning equipment
  • Nasogastric tubes
  • Neck braces
  • Ophthalmoscopes
  • Oral suctioning equipment
  • Orthopedic splinting equipment
  • Otoscopes
  • Oxygen concentrators
  • Oxygen delivery masks
  • Oxygen flowmeters
  • Pacemaker analyzers
  • Peak flowmeters
  • Pediatric blood pressure cuffs
  • Pericardiocentesis kits
  • Personal computers
  • Personal digital assistants PDA
  • Pneumatic tourniquets
  • Portable electrocardiography EKG machines
  • Protective face shields
  • Protective gowns
  • Pulmonary artery catheters
  • Pulse oximeters
  • Pulsed dye lasers
  • Reflex hammers
  • Safety goggles
  • Skin staplers
  • Snellen eye charts
  • Specimen collection containers
  • Spinal immobilization equipment
  • Straight surgical scissors
  • Surgical scalpels
  • Surgical staple removers
  • Suturing kits
  • Tablet computers
  • Thoracentesis kits
  • Tissue culture incubators
  • Tourniquets
  • Tracheal suctioning equipment
  • Tracheotomy sets
  • Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS equipment
  • Transcutaneous pacemakers
  • Tympanometers
  • Umbilical catheters
  • Upper extremity braces
  • Urinalysis test strips
  • Urinary catheters
  • Vaginal exam speculas
  • Ventricular assist devices VAD
  • Visual acuity testing cards
  • Walking braces

Technology Skills required for Nurse Practitioner

  • Allscripts Professional EHR
  • Amkai AmkaiCharts
  • Bizmatics PrognoCIS EMR
  • Cerner Millennium
  • e-MDs software
  • eClinicalWorks EHR software
  • Epic Systems
  • GE Healthcare Centricity EMR
  • Healthcare common procedure coding system HCPCS
  • Medical condition coding software
  • Medical procedure coding software
  • MEDITECH software
  • Medscribbler Enterprise
  • MicroFour PracticeStudio.NET EMR
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Microsoft Word
  • NextGen Healthcare Information Systems EMR
  • Patient management software
  • PCC Pediatric Partner
  • SOAPware EMR
  • StatCom Patient Flow Logistics Enterprise Suite
  • SynaMed EMR
  • Texas Medical Software SpringCharts EMR
  • Web browser software