Medical Assistants and Insulin/Diabetes Teaching

[LP_Collins]

Hello,

Wanted to get some feedback about what other organizations are doing with regards to medical assistants and insulin/pen education.

Our physicians feel that MAs are qualified to do this if they have a "written, pre-approved" document that the MA can use. I, on the other hand, think this is way outside of their scope of practice and that an unlicensed person isn't qualified to do education or teaching, let alone teaching that requires teach back and assessment of learning of a high risk medication.

Wanted to see if anyone had any literature to support this as an RN only function. I am in Florida.

Thanks.

[Crash_Cart]

10 hours ago, LP_Collins said:

I, on the other hand, think this is way outside of their scope of practice and that an unlicensed person isn't qualified to do education or teaching,

I couldn't find any wording suggesting a diabetes educator is a restricted function.

https://www.diabeteseducator.org/education/career-path-certificate

[JKL33]

14 hours ago, LP_Collins said:

Wanted to see if anyone had any literature to support this as an RN only function.

It might be wise to look at it from another angle - - there is a list of categories of things that you are expressly allowed to do, posted/repeated on various FL-specific gov't sites. If the item is not mentioned and/or doesn't easily fit into one of the permitted categories it might be best to seek clarification from the BoM. This is not advice, just common sense tending toward precaution.

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0400-0499/0458/Sections/0458.3485.html

https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/458.3485

[Jory, MSN, APRN, CNM]

I have a real problem with this. States really need to start cracking down on what medical assistants are permitted to do.

It takes two nurses in most nurses facilities to sign off on insulin administration, but they want a minimally trained, non-licensed person to teach a patient how to use a medication that if used incorrectly, can kill them.

Nope...nope...and nope. If the MD signs off on that, if I were the nurse, my name would appear NOWHERE on that visit. Any forms, any witnessing of teaching, anything...MD needs to sign themselves.