Advanced Practice Provider Profiles

There are many types of advanced practice providers, each serving in different ways, but all with the goal of delivering high-quality patient care. Learn more about Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN) and Physician Assistants (PA).

Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN)

“Advanced practice registered nurses continue to perform many of the same interventions used in basic nursing practice.  The difference in this practice relates to a greater depth and breadth of knowledge, a greater degree of synthesis of data, complexity of skills and interventions.”   American Nurses Association Scope of Practice

Advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) education consists of broad-based education, including three separate graduate level courses in advanced physiology/pathophysiology, health assessment, and pharmacology as well as appropriate clinical experiences. In order to practice as an APRN, certification examination is required along with continued competency evaluation.  

The Ohio revised code defines an Advanced Practice Nurse as a Nurse Midwife, Certified Nurse Practitioner, Clinical Nurse Specialist or Registered Nurse Anesthetist: 

• Nurse Midwife (CNM) - The certified nurse-midwife provides a full range of primary health care services to women throughout the lifespan, including gynecologic care, family planning services, preconception care, prenatal and postpartum care, childbirth, and care of the newborn. This care is provided in diverse settings, which may include home, hospital, birth center, and a variety of ambulatory care settings including private offices and community and public health clinics. APRN Consensus Model
  Q&A – Learn more about what it means to be a CNM
• Certified Nurse Practitioner (CNP) - For the CNP, care along the wellness-illness continuum is a dynamic process in which direct primary and acute care is provided across settings. Both primary and acute care CNPs provide initial, ongoing, and comprehensive care, including taking histories, providing physical examination, diagnosing, interpreting test results, treating, and managing patients with acute and chronic illness. CNP care includes health promotion, disease prevention, health education and counseling. CNPs are prepared to practice in primary care or acute care (ACNP), which have separate national consensus-based competencies and separate certification processes. APRN Consensus Model.
  Q&A – Learn more about what it means to be a CNP
• Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) - The CNS has a unique APRN role to integrate across the continuum and through three spheres of influence: patient, nurse, system. The three spheres are overlapping and interrelated but each sphere possesses a distinctive focus. In each sphere of influence, the primary goal of the CNS is continuous improvement of patient outcomes and nursing care.  Key elements of CNS practice are to create environments through mentoring and system changes that empower nurses to develop caring, evidence-based practices to alleviate patient distress, facilitate ethical decision making, and respond to diversity. The CNS is responsible and accountable for diagnosis and treatment of health/illness states, disease management, health promotion, and prevention of illness and risk behaviors among individuals, families, groups, and communities. APRN Consensus Model.
  Q&A – Learn more about what it means to be a CNS
• Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) -The CRNA is prepared to provide the full spectrum of patients’ anesthesia-related care for individuals across the lifespan, whose health status may range from healthy through all recognized levels of acuity, including persons with immediate, severe, or life-threatening illnesses or injury. This care is provided in diverse settings, including hospital surgical suites and obstetrical delivery rooms, critical access hospitals, acute care, pain management centers, and the offices of dentists, podiatrists, ophthalmologists, and plastic surgeons. APRN Consensus Model
  Q&A – Learn more about what it means to be a CRNA

Physician Assistant (PA)

Physician assistants are health care professionals who are nationally certified and licensed by the state in which they practice. They practice independently in all areas of medicine in conjunction with their supervising physician. They have the authority to prescribe medications and the ability to evaluate, diagnose, and treat the patients that they see. 
Q&A – Learn more about what it means to be a PA