Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Job Description, Key Duties and Responsibilities

This post focuses on the job description of an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner, including the duties, tasks, and responsibilities they perform.

What Does an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Do?

The Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner (ARNP) is a highly experienced and trained nurse whose role in the healthcare service sector is to promote and maintain patients’ healthcare.

The advanced registered nurse practitioner job description entails providing care to patients by taking their health history and performing clinical assessments on them.

Their duties also include diagnosing the patient’s ailment and providing treatment and evaluation of the recommended treatment plan.

Using sound judgment as stated in the nurse practice act, advanced registered nurse practitioners work effectively and efficiently independently or in collaboration with other members of the healthcare team to providing quality healthcare service to patients in various health institutions.

They provide leadership and support their organizations in delivery corporate policies and procedures.
ARNPs have acquired a great degree of critical thinking, diagnostic and assessment skills needed for making accurate and safe clinical decisions and providing expert care.

The advanced nurse practitioner has responsibility for conducting a complete health assessment for patients within the general practice, identifying both normal and abnormal responses, and developing plans for treatment.

Other duties they perform include initiating the right care and constantly evaluating its outcomes. They work under a physician’s supervision and also perform delegated duties such as differential diagnosis, prescription of drugs, and treatment of various illness following established orders, practice guidelines, and protocols.

Based on possession of advanced knowledge of nursing practice, these practitioners are usually needed as clinical resource, interdisciplinary consultants, and client’s advocates.

The services they provide cut across nursing, education, and counseling to patients and their families, and other interest groups, with emphasis on maintenance of healthcare and prevention of diseases.

They promote quality healthcare by integrating current research findings into practice and taking responsibility for outcomes in healthcare delivery.

Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Job Description Example/Sample/Template

Below is a sample of the job description for most advanced registered nurse practitioners, consisting of key duties, tasks, and responsibilities, they are usually expected to carry out:

• Under a physician’s supervision, perform clinical assessment on new patients, consult to and follow up on patients at the clinic
• Document patients’ physical assessments, medical histories, and progress reports under 24 hours
• Render assistance in performing paperwork, including writing or calling in prescriptions, completing CSR and forms such as radiology and nuclear medicine forms
• Retrieve and evaluate patients’ medical results, including pathology and laboratory results, and reports on x-ray
• Participate in weekly Endocrinology Multidisciplinary Conference
• Triage and direct the scheduling of patients that require consultation in endocrinology
• Maintain, under supervision of a faculty physician, an independent outpatient clinic
• Study patients’ biopsy and laboratory reports and order required routine tests
• Acting within established delegated authority policies and procedures, order drugs and treatments for patients
• Carry out routine admission procedures, such as registering the required patients’ information into computer systems
• Assess and determine patients’ status for symptoms, toxicities, and side-effects
• Responsible for calculating drug doses when required, charting notes, measuring films to determine disease response, assuring protocol compliance and assisting physicians when needed
• Provide health education centering on disease prevention and management to patients and their families, as well as to other individuals and groups
• Provide training to in-house nursing staff and those from other clinics on protocol requirements
• Provide training and guidance to students, including advanced practice nurses, medical students, and house officers.

Applicants vying for the ARNP job can also use the above job description example in preparing a resume for the position.

Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Requirements: Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities for Career Success

Below is a list of requirements, including key skills, knowledge, and abilities, which most employers usually want prospecting applicants to meet to be employed as an advanced registered nurse practitioner:

• Ability to visually read documents from a video screen as well as in print.
• Ability to use computers and printers to input and print out patients’ information when required
• Ability to do minimal mathematical calculations with or without the use of a calculator
• Ability to work independently and perform duties with minimal supervision, including commencing monthly tasks by self
• Strong knowledge of terminologies used in the medical field, and the ability to understand and effectively act on telephone communication with physicians and other health workers both within and outside the organization
• Ability to communicate clearly in writing, as well as verbally with physicians and other healthcare workers, patients and their families, all other stakeholders
• Critical thinking ability with strong skills in making decision, performing clinical assessment and diagnosis.