NAs must follow guidelines “mutually developed and agreed upon by the nurse and the supervising physician in accordance with regulations promulgated jointly by the board and the board of registration in medicine after consultation with the board of registration of pharmacy,” according to the new law.
According to the ASA release, The Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiologists, joined by the ASA and other groups, worked to defeat legislation introduced three years that would have removed the medical board’s authority from the regulation of the scope of practice of NAs in Massachusetts and would have granted NAs unlimited prescriptive authority,
The bill — H.B. 4593 — retains the medical board’s authority and recognizes “the role of anesthesiologists as the physician anesthesia care team leaders with the medical expertise to ensure treatment decisions are medically sound,” according to the release.
View the new Massachusetts nurse anesthetist limited prescribing law (pdf).
Read the ASA’s release on H.B. 4593.
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