Many countries, including Israel, face health workforce challenges to meet the needs of their citizens, as chronic conditions increase. Provider shortages and geographical maldistribution are common. Increasing the contribution of nurse practitioners and other advanced practice nursing roles through task-shifting and expansion of scope-of-practice can improve access to care and result in greater workforce efficiency. Israel and many other countries are introducing reforms to expand nurses’ scope-of-practice. Recent international research offers three policy lessons for how countries just beginning to implement reforms could bypass policy barriers to implementation. First, there is substantial evidence on the equivalence in quality of care, patient safety and high consumer acceptance which should move policy debates from if to how to effectively implement new roles in practice. Second, regulatory and finance policies as well as accessible advanced education are essential to facilitate realignment of roles. Third, country experience suggests that advanced practice roles for nurses improve the attractiveness of nursing as a career thus contributing to solving nursing shortages rather than exacerbating them. Designing enabling policy environments and removing barriers will gain in relevance in the future as the demand for high-quality, patient-centered care is increasing.

To address the gap in evidence-based information required to support the development of advanced practice nursing (APN) roles in Switzerland, stakeholders identified the need for guidance to generate strategic evaluation data. This article describes an evaluation framework developed to inform decisions about the effective utilization of APN roles across the country. Approach: A participatory approach was used by an international group of stakeholders. Published literature and an evidenced-based framework for introducing APN roles were analyzed and applied to define the purpose, target audiences, and essential elements of the evaluation framework. Through subsequent meetings and review by an expert panel, the framework was developed and refined. Findings: A framework to evaluate different types of APN roles as they evolve to meet dynamic population health, practice setting, and health system needs was created. It includes a matrix of key concepts to guide evaluations across three stages of APN role development: introduction, implementation, and long-term sustainability. For each stage, evaluation objectives and questions examining APN role structures, processes, and outcomes from different perspectives (e.g., patients, providers, managers, policy-makers) were identified. Conclusions: A practical, robust framework based on well-established evaluation concepts and current understanding of APN roles can be used to conduct systematic evaluations. Clinical Relevance: The evaluation framework is sufficiently generic to allow application in developed countries globally, both for evaluation as well as research purposes.