Hi all. This is for Washington state RNs in particular and I am sure in coming years other states are going to attempt this in state BONs. The DOH ( which is our BON here in Washington ) has proposed draft rules about credentialing medical assistants in my state. I am all for this credentialing mandate so there will be a high quality work force. However, it has been my experience that MAs work in an office under a physician license and he or she is responsible for delegation and overseeing their work.
I get a newsletter (link.serv) from my state and they sent us a copy of these proposed changes which of course lie in an RN's scope of practice and the DOH credentialing person said in the body of the email that they sent us these proposed rule changes because we oversee them.
My questions to you fellow nurses in Washington and elsewhere because I don't work in a physician office environment is this correct?, or are RNs once again being dumped on by 1. Having a person who will have a credential but does not have a quarter of the clinical hours being trained even a new graduate RN does but I will be responsible to oversee her care of patients. There are items in the proposed rules that talk about allowing MAs to do IV pushes, start and stop IVs etc all under a RNs supervision. I am enclosed a doc file of the proposed rules including where Washington RNs may email the DOH and state what they think. I hope that RNs here dont once again let the powers that be take away even more of the RN scope of practice to less educated professionals. I realize there is a "nursing shortage" haha but this to me is just another example of replacing highly skilled and educated medical professionals with less educated ones and also making us responsible for delegating our own scope of practice to them. Any thoughts everyone?
