In Alaska, where nurse practitioners have had independent practice authority since 1983, the Board of Nursing (BON) has published proposed regulation changes affecting NPs for pharmacology requirements, injections and relicensure. ADVANCE first reported these changes in December 2009. Barb Berner, NP, chairwoman of the legislative committee for the Alaska Nurse Practitioner Association, expressed concerns that the changes were ambiguous, and she encouraged NPs to make comments during a public comment period. The BON considered these comments at its October 2009 meeting.
There was such strong response that the chairwoman of the Alaska Board of Nursing, Catherine Geissel, NP, published a letter to clarify details of the changes. In the letter, she explained that a change relating to injections allows NPs to delegate injection to "unlicensed assistive personnel" but that those personnel must be certified medical assistants. She also noted that the changes remove outdated physician oversight language, which may have been unclear in the published changes.
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