Snapshot

APN Role Exists in Country Today:
No

Role

Advanced Nursing Practice in Germany does not exist today, nor does it seem to be a nation that will have an established role in the near future.  Much of this is based on the lack of need for advanced practice nurses because of an oversupply of physicians in their nation (Sheer & Wong, 2008).  Additionally, much of current nursing practice in that of Germany is based on hospital-trained diploma programs.  Due to the lack of a nationally standardized nursing role and education system, this becomes a strong limitation on not only the advanced practice nurse, but that of the registered nurse (Robinson & Griffiths, 2007).  However, since 2004 several national universities began providing standardized nursing education at the bachelors level (Robinson & Griffiths, 2007).  There post-registration educational courses available as well allowing nurses to specialize in a specific subject, being offered as 2-year hospital based programs (Robinson & Griffiths, 2007).  Another article by De Geest et al., (2008) verbalized that there is some movement that states physicians and nurses recognize there may be benefit in having more skilled nurses in practice.  Scope of practice is difficult to determine based on the variance of the individual hospital educational systems.

However, a good source of Advanced Practice Nurse networking in Germany can be found here: Deutsches Netzwerk.

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References:
De Geest, S., Moons, P., Callens, B., Gut., C., Lindpainter, L., & Sprig, R. (2008).  Introducting advanced practice nurses/nurse practitioners in health care systems: A framework for reflection and analysis.  Swiss Med Weekly, 138(43-44),621-628.

Robinson, S. & Griffiths, P. (2007).  Nursing education and regulation: International profiles and perspectives [online publication].  Retrieved from: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/348772/1/NurseEduProfiles.pdf

Sheer, B. & Wong, F.K. (2008).  The development of advanced nursing practice globally.  Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 40(3),204-211.