An Overview of Nursing Standards of Practice in New York NICU Units

This report provides an overview of the nursing standards of practice in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) in New York, tracing the development of these standards from the initiatives of Adelaide Nutting and Lavinia Dock to the present-day regulations overseen by The New York State Education Department (NYSED). It details the roles of various nursing categories, including Registered Professional Nurses (RPN), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN), Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS), and Nurse Practitioners (NP), with a focus on the responsibilities of RNs in the NICU. The report highlights the involvement of entities such as the Office of the Professions, NYSED, and the New York State Nurses Association in defining the scope of practice and ethical conduct. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of multidisciplinary teams, person-centered care, and parental involvement in the NICU setting, aligning with the professional code of conduct and practice standards. The report concludes by referencing key documents and organizations that shape nursing practices in New York.

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Process for the development of nursing standards of practice in New York
Adelaide Nutting and Lavinia Dock initiated the process of the development of the
nursing standards in New York during the reign of the Florence Nightingale (Garofalo & Fee,
2015). At present, the nursing rules and regulation in New York operates under the control
supervision of The New York State Education Department (NYSD (2019). It categorized
nursing in four different professional nursing categories like Registered Professional Nurse
(RPN), Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN), Clinical Nurse Specialist and Nurse Practitioners.
The main acting force of the NICU is RNs. A CNS has obtained master’s degree in advanced
clinical nursing education. NP has a separate license in comparison to the CNS and is entitled
to treat, diagnose and prescribe for patient’s condition that falls with their scope of practice.
LPN provides skilled nursing tasks under the supervision of RN (NYSD, 2019).
Entities involved in developing nursing standards in New York
The main entity involved in the development of the nursing standards in New York
includes Office of the Professions, New York State Education Department (NYSED) (2019).
The state education department drafts the practice position of the nurses along with a detailed
description of the ethics, professional miss-conduct along with rules and regulations in the
nursing profession. The New York State Nurses Association (2019) also takes part in the
development of the nursing standards. They mainly define the scope of practice. The scope of
practice authorizes RNs (registered nurses) to work independently while providing various
aspect of medical care. All these state-level organization work under the supervision of the
American Nurses Association (ANA) (2019).

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Nursing Standards in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
According to The New York State Nurses Association (2019), the scope of practice
authorizes the registered nurses (RNs) to work independently within their scope of practice
and abilities while providing various aspect of the medical care. If the nursing professional is
found guilty for practicing outside the scope of their practice then, he or she could be charged
for their professional misconduct. The role of the RNs under the guidelines of the NYSDE
(2018) mainly emphasize on conducting health assessment; unique diagnosis and treatment of
the patient; teach and council patients, execution of the therapy plan proposed by the
healthcare physicians and effective contribution in the inter-disciplinary team in order to
procure person centered care (NYSED, 2018). The professional code of conduct and the
professional practice standards of NICU mainly coincide with few of the nursing standards
scope of practice. It is the role of the registered nurse in NICU to perform health assessment,
however, such health assessments must be done under the presence of parents. The NICU
scope of practice and professional standards also highlights the importance of the
multidisciplinary team and unique treatment process in order to promote health and wellbeing
of the neonates. The presence of parents and their level of knowledge in the decision making
process is extremely important in the NICU ward. Thus, it is recommended that before the
onset of the treatment a nurse must inform the parents about the therapy plan and intended
outcome. In doing so, the level of knowledge of both the parents’ in the domain of disease
progression is increased and thus promoting speedy recovery (O’Brien et al., 2013).

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References
American Nurses Association. (2019). Scope and Standards of Nursing Practice. Access
date: 29th Jan 2019. Retrieved from:
http://www.theamericannurse.org/2013/03/01/scope-and-standards-of-nursing-
practice/
Garofalo, M. E., & Fee, E. (2015). Lavinia Dock (1858–1956): Picketing, Parading, and
Protesting. American journal of public health, 105(2), 276.
O’Brien, K., Bracht, M., Macdonell, K., McBride, T., Robson, K., O’Leary, L., ... & Lee, S.
K. (2013). A pilot cohort analytic study of Family Integrated Care in a Canadian
neonatal intensive care unit. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 13(1), S12.
Office of the Professions, New York State Education Department. (2019). Nursing Guide to
Practice. Access date: 29th Jan 2019. Retrieved from:
http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/nurse/nurse-guide-april09.pdf
Office of the Professions, New York State Education Department. (2018). Nursing. Access
date: 29th Jan 2019. Retrieved from:http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/nurse/
The New York State Nurses Association. (2019). Scope of Practice. Access date: 29th Jan
2019. Retrieved from:
https://www.nysna.org/nursing-practice/practice-resources/scope-
practice#.XE_Pc1wzbIU