Nurse Practice Act of Ohio

Writing Assignment 2.1: Nursing Practice Act

The Nursing practice act provides people who have an interest in the nursing profession specialized knowledge, judgment and skills of nursing science. Some of the sciences involved with nursing are biology, physics, behavioral, and social. With the Registered Nursing license the nurse has a scope of practice, knowledge of the nursing process, the possibility of practicing advanced nursing and prescriptive privileges. As a student there are guidelines to obtain a license, activities that could lead to the loss of my license and the important use of continuing education credits. There are special requirements that nursing schools have to implement to have well educated students. Also there is an Ohio State Board of Nursing who regulates all of these requirements. Each nurse must know boundaries within their scope. A responsibility of a RN is to identify the patterns of human responses or health problems and to create a nursing regimen. The nurse must execute this process through selection, performance, management and evaluation of nursing actions. The nurse is responsible for assessing the health status of the patients. The RN is a provider for health counseling and teaching patients. The nurse is responsible for administering medications, treatments, and other health regimens that are ordered by a licensed provider. With the practice of the scope of RN, there are also standards that every RN needs to follow. Every RN follows the nursing process. The nurse follows standards of heath for the patient by preforming physical exams, asking health status questions, recognize change in health status, and communicating all information to the authorized health care provider. The nurse also has a role in collecting data and analyzes the proper nursing regimen that is needed. Also establishes and modifies a diagnosis or problem. Authorized health care providers can be advanced practice nurses. An advanced practice nurse is an RN that has more than the basic knowledge and specializes in an advanced area of nursing. The advanced practice nurse has special fields such as Certified Register Nurse Anesthetist, Clinical nurse specialist, Midwife, Nurse Specialist, and Nurse Practitioner. Advanced practice nurses can authorize an RN to administer medications and treatment. When administering medications and treatment a RN must practice within the nursing scope. An authorized regimen does not expand a nurse’s scope. Only authorized licensed medical professionals can write prescriptions. Being a new nursing student there are many objectives to complete to get a nursing license. First the student must obtain an education from a school that is approved by the state board of nursing. That school has to have a letter of intent sent to the board to establish a new nursing program. Once the approval of the school is granted, an administrator has to write an education proposal of education. This proposal should target the students directly, show that the school will be compliant with the rules and meeting and maintaining the nursing education standards. There will be a surveyor that will review the nursing program at any time to influence the decision of approving the program. The approval of the nursing program will be voted on at the next board meeting. Once approved the administrator may implement the program during a conditional approach period. During this time progress reports are to be made to the board. The board then will review all progress and will be randomly surveyed. After the school is open and running a new nursing student must complete the required hours and courses to graduate from the program. The nurse must then apply to take the NCLEX exam and pass to obtain a license. Once a nurse becomes licensed, the nurse becomes liable. A simple error can lead to disciplinary action and could lead to denial, suspension or revocation of license. The Board of nursing has the right to remove dangerous practitioner’s from their practice to protect the public’s health. The board handles any complaints or investigations that involve the well-being of the public. Some cases that can lead to disciplinary action are chemical dependency, negligence or wrongful death. An uprising issue is HIPAA and social media. There were over 8,000 complaints to the Ohio State Board of Nursing last year. 4, 093 cases were subjected to probation, fines and even revoking of licensure. There are two ways that you could possibly keep your license and this is if you agree to Alternative Program for Chemical Dependency and the Practice Intervention & Improvement Program. The State Board of Nursing is in control of the nurse’s and their licensure. The board is composed of 13 Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses and a Juris Doctor. Each of these nurses are from around the state of Ohio. The board is responsible for making sure license and certificates meet standards of Ohio to practice nursing, maintain academic standards for schooling, regulates training and continuing education credits, audits complaints that are submitted, and helps students with grants. The board does a lot of hard work, but also contributes a lot to the nursing community of Ohio. In conclusion, nursing is not all what it seems to be on TV and in media. There is a lot of contributing factors that go into the schooling, licensure and safe practice of nursing. Nurses must practice within their scope, listen to the standards, and try to better their education with schooling or continuing education credits. Nurses must know their prescriptive privileges, maintain good standing with their licensure and stay far from activities that may lead to disciplinary actions. The nurse must be complaint with the State Board of Ohio and know that there are possibilities of grants and training courses to better their education. Nursing is a hard practice.