Starting July 15, nurse practitioners in Kentucky who have completed a four-year collaboration with a physician will be allowed to prescribe routine medications without a doctor’s involvement, a major shift that could help improve consumers’ access to care. The law that makes this possible passed after five years of legislative debate. Nurse practitioners are fighting in other states for more authority to treat patients at a time of rising concern over the impact of the federal health law. As more Americans get insurance, there may be shortages of primary care doctors, especially in states like Kentucky that have many rural areas.
If you have ever had a loved one in a hospital intensive care unit, you know. In that sterile scary room, the nurse can be the most important person. She or he is a steady presence — deftly monitoring the mountain of tubes and beeping machines, while at the same time calming frightened families and friends. I can remember what it was like being in that emotional and physical space. It’s a scene still emblazoned in my memory — my family and I standing at the draped hospital bed praying out loud that my dad would be okay.
The number of licensed nurses in Oklahoma stands at nearly 75,000, an all-time high in the state. The Oklahoman reported Sunday that a recent open records request to the Oklahoma Board of Nursing found there are 74,656 licensed nurses in the state, an increase of more than 22,000 during the past decade. Nursing board executive director Kim Glazier said she traces the increase to a panic of sorts that began in 2004 or 2005 when reports began that there was a looming nursing shortage to take care of the aging baby boom generation, generally defined as those born between 1946 and 1964. Efforts were made then to attract more people to nursing.
Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday quietly signed a bill setting nurse staffing levels inside intensive-care units at one nurse per one patient, depending on the stability of the patient. The private bill-signing was attended by state Rep. Denise Garlick, a Needham Democrat and registered nurse, and Donna Kelly-Williams, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, a union that had been pushing for two ballot questions on nurse-patient ratios and CEO pay and hospital financial transparency. Patrick's signature on the bill (H 4228) means the union will drop both initiative petitions, which were headed for the November ballot.
A Lehigh County jury today found that St. Luke's University Hospital should not have sued the families of two patients who died at the facility when serial killer Charles Cullen worked there. Cullen is serving consecutive life sentences in New Jersey after admitting he killed at least 29 people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 2004, family members of two former patients who died at the hospital in Fountain Hill filed malpractice suits against St. Luke's. Harry Miller sued on behalf of Regina Miller, and Robert and Leslie Hall sued on behalf of Marilyn Hall. The suits claimed Cullen murdered those clients during his tenure at St. Luke's, between 2000 and 2002.
The state Senate unanimously approved a bill on Thursday that would limit staffing in hospital intensive care units, a day after the bill received unanimous support in the House. As the Boston Business Journal reported earlier today, it was expected the Senate would approve the bill. The bill will soon head to Gov. Deval Patrick, who is expected to support the measure. The bill says that a nurse cannot be assigned more than one patient in an intensive care unit setting, and in certain circumstances, no more than two patients.