Humanities and Social Sciences Review, CD-ROM. ISSN: 2165-6258 :: 03(03):49–64 (2014) Copyright c  2014 by UniversityPublications.net PARADIGM EVOLUTION: THE NURSE EXPERTS ANALYSES OF THE NEEDS AND ISSUES OF ADVANCED CLINICAL NURSING PRACTICE Marica G. Estrada and Crestita B. Tan University of Santo Tomas, Philippines This study surfaced the Filipino nurse expert’s perceptual analysis of the needs and issues affecting the acceptance and utilization of Advanced Nursing Practice in the country. Using Delphi technique, consensus-building was sought by using a series of questionnaires to collect opinions from a panel of experts. From the analyses of qualitative of ten (10) nursing experts from the different fields such as in the nursing education, nursing practice and nursing administrators, three main themes emerged as the following: (1) Transformation and Synchronization of Academic Preparation (2) Adaptation of Nursing Practice to Global Competency Standards (3) Promotion and Increased Utilization of ANP. The phenomenon “paradigm evolution” symbolically represents the needs and issues in the acceptance and utilization of Advanced Nursing Practice in the Philippines.These identified key main themes served as bases for the development of the Advanced Nursing Practice framework in the Philippines. Keywords: Needs and issues, Standardization, Health policy, Advanced clinical nursing practice, Philippines. Introduction Advanced Nursing Practice has been particularly prominent in health care discourse over the last several years. There is a numerous body of empirical literatures supporting the unique contributions of advanced nursing practice to health care and these contributions have received attention in the health care policy literature (Brown, 1998). Basic practice is absolutely fundamental to the delivery of nursing care. The confusion lies on surrounding the advanced role and the government’s desire to support the expansion of the nurse’s role. There is a need to clarify what is meant by Advanced Nursing Practice in order to inform and safeguard the public. It is also vital that the profession develops a clear understanding of what nurses working in at an advanced or higher level can achieve both for patients and for the profession itself. Lastly, it is important to make evident to the allied professions that the movement of traditional boundaries does not mean that nurses are simply undertaking delegated tasks but they are qualitatively changing the service offered to patients (Ball, 1999). There are different labels given to ANP which often denote different scope and responsibilities of practice, more often than not, in practice, the roles have some large areas of overlap. It might be argued that the differences found are a result of the type of specialty practice the nurse undertakes rather than which can be identified through a title. What might be deemed to be an advanced skill in one area may be deemed to be basic practice in another. ANP play different functions including expert practice, consultation, research and collaboration. 49