Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:23:37.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Definition and Regulation of Nursing Practice: An Historical Survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Jane Greenlaw
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The definition and regulation of nursing practice are issues of growing national interest. A variety of factors, including rising health care costs and consumer awareness, have combined to catalyze changes in health care delivery, with an increasing emphasis on disease prevention and cost-effectiveness. These goals have necessarily focused attention on the respective roles of non-physicians—most prominently, nurses—as providers of lower cost, quality health care. In a climate of professional and economic competition, state legislatures, state nursing boards, courts, and professional nursing organizations are engaged in a process of changing, adapting, or interpreting existing nursing practice laws to meet the needs of the changing health care system.

This article reviews the history and evolution of nursing practice legislation, examines the present stage in its development, and highlights some important issues affecting contemporary nursing practice acts.

Type
Nursing Law and Ethics
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , June 1985 , pp. 117 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Eccard, W.T., A Revolution in White—New Approaches in Treating Nurses as Professionals, Vanderbilt Law Review 30: 839, 840 (1977) [hereinafter referred to as Eccard].Google Scholar
Id. at 841.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Bullough, V.L., Bullough, B., The Care of the Sick: the Emergence of modern Nursing (Prodist, New York) (1978) at 105–19 [hereinafter referred to as Care of the Sick].Google Scholar
Bullough, B., The Current Phase in the Development of Nurse Practice Acts, St. Louis University Law Journal 28: 365, 367 (1984) [hereinafter referred to as Nurse Practice Acts].Google Scholar
Id. at 368–69. Formed in 1847, the American Medical Association promoted medical licensure as a means to raise the level of medical competence; raise standards of medical education; lessen competition from other healers; and increase the power and status of the profession. The first medical practice act, requiring examination and registration, was passed in Texas in 1873; by 1895 all states had passed such registration laws. Id. at 365.Google Scholar
Eccard, , supra note 1, at 842, n. 16.Google Scholar
Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 369.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Bullough, B., The Law and the Expanding Nursing Role, American Journal of Public Health, 66: 249 (1976) [hereinafter referred to as Expanding Nursing Role].Google ScholarPubMed
Eccard, , supra note 1, at 842; Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 370–71.Google Scholar
Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 371.Google Scholar
Id. at 373, quoting N.Y. Laws ch. 472, art. 52, §1374.2 (1938).Google Scholar
ANA Board Approves a Definition of Nursing Practice, American Journal of Nursing 55(12): 1474 (December 1955).Google Scholar
Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 374.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Eccard, , supra note 1, at 843.Google Scholar
Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 375.Google Scholar
Eccard, , supra note 1, at 849.Google Scholar
D'Amico, , Nursing Practice Acts Revisions, Association of Operating Room Nurses Journal 22(1): 105, 106 (July 1975).Google Scholar
Expanding Nursing Role, supra note 10, at 249.Google Scholar
Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 378–81.Google Scholar
See, e.g., Idaho Code §54-1413 (e) (1971) (repealed by 1977 Idaho Sess. Laws ch. 132 §1).Google Scholar
See, e.g., N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann §326-B:10 (Supp. 1981).Google Scholar
LeBar, C., The Regulation of Advanced Nursing Practice as Provided for in Nursing Practice Acts and Administrative Rules (American Nurses’ Association, Kansas City, Mo.) (1983) at 61 [hereinafter referred to as LeBar].Google Scholar
Id. at 82.Google Scholar
Id. at 105.Google Scholar
Id. at 130.Google Scholar
Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 32, §2102.2C (1964). The definition of nursing includes “[d]iagnosis of illness or prescription of therapeutic or corrective measures when such services are delegated by a physician to a registered nurse who has completed the necessary additional educational program….”Google Scholar
See, e.g., Delegation of Medical Services, Mass. Admin. Code tit. 243, §2.06(4) (1980). “A full licensee may permit a skilled professional or non-professional assistant to perform services in a manner consistent with accepted medical standards and appropriate to the assistant's skill.”Google Scholar
Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island. LeBar, supra note 25, at 12.Google Scholar
American Nurses’ Association, The Rhode Island. LeBar, supra note 25, at 12. Legislation (American Nurses’ Association, Kansas City, Mo.) (1981) at 3.Google Scholar
Id. at 6.Google Scholar
American Nurses Association, Nursing: A Social Policy Statement (American Nurses’ Association, Kansas City, Mo.) (1980).Google Scholar
See, e.g., Sermchief v. Gonzales, 660 S.W.2d 683 (Mo. 1983), where two nurse practitioners successfully withstood a challenge by the Missouri Board of Healing Arts that the nurses were practicing medicine. For two discussions of this case, see Wolff, M.A., Court Upholds Expanded Practice Roles for Nurses, Law, Medicine & Health Care 12(1):26 (February 1984); Greenlaw, J., Sermchief v. Gonzales and the Debate over Advanced Nursing Practice Legislation, Law, Medicine & Health Care 12(1):30 (February 1984).Google ScholarPubMed
Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 387.Google Scholar
Eccard, , supra note 1, at 847–48.Google Scholar
Id. at 845–46.Google Scholar
Id. at 848.Google Scholar
Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 386.Google Scholar
ANA Gears Up New Drive for Entry-Level Change: Despite Opposition, Some SNAs See Success Soon, American Journal of Nursing 85(2):194 (February 1985).Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Nurse Practice Acts, supra note 5, at 391.Google Scholar
Id. at 386 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

A correction has been issued for this article:

Erratum