This month in Minnesota, advanced practice nurses gained new authority to practice. State requirements mandating a collaborative practice agreement between a physician and an advanced practice nurse are no longer required for nurses who meet the state’s new licensing and certification standards. The changes could benefit both metro-area and rural Minnesota communities by increasing access to the expertise of advanced practice nurses and opportunities to visit nurse-led primary care clinics.
The changes come as primary care access across Minnesota enters a critical stage, with a shortage of as many as 850 primary care physicians expected within the next ten years, according to the Minnesota Hospital Association.
“Access to care is the big push,” said Mary Chesney, Ph.D., R.N., clinical associate professor and director of the University of Minnesota’s Doctor of Nursing Practice Program. “It’s an all hands on deck moment for Minnesota.”
Chesney, an advanced practice nurse herself, championed the bill during last year’s legislative session in her role as president of the Minnesota Advanced Practice Registered Nurses Coalition. The new law grants nurse practitioners, certified nurse anesthetists, clinical nurse specialists and nurse midwives the ability to practice without a collaborative agreement in place with a physician, after they have worked about one full year (or 2,080 hours) in collaboration with another advanced practice nurse or a physician. The new law also grants University of Minnesota School of Nursing graduates a better ability to practice to the full extent of their education.
Most of the projected primary care shortage is expected to befall greater Minnesota. Beth Good, D.N.P., a mental health clinical nurse specialist practicing in Mora, Minnesota, expects the new law to remove future barriers and interruptions to the care she provides. Good, a UMN doctor of nursing practice program alumna, saw her patients change providers or go without care in the mid-2000s, as she struggled to find a physician willing and able to sign the collaborative agreement then required for Good to practice.
More autonomous practice for advanced practice nurses currently exists in 19 other states. According to Chesney, the safety data in these states has remained stable as nurses assume expanded opportunities. More than two decades of research evidence demonstrates the safety, quality and effectiveness of care delivered by advanced practice nurses. More recent safety outcomes could be due, in part, to the health care industry’s growing emphasis on collaboration and communication between physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other care providers.
“Why would a family nurse practitioner need a piece of paper when a family physician does not?” president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners Angela Golden, D.N.P., asked Minnesota Public Radio last year as expanding practice rights were debated locally and nationally. “A family physician is delivering babies and is expected professionally to go to their obstetrician colleagues if there’s a problem, yet nobody expects them to have a piece of paper stuffed in a drawer to do that professional piece for good patient care.”
At the end of the day, lawmakers and advanced practice nurses like UMN’s Chesney say the changes are likely to result in one important thing: better access to quality health care.
The post Advanced practice nurses gain new rights in Minnesota appeared first on Health Talk.
