Out Of State Question

[MWE66]

I run one of the Honor Flight chapters, in particular Villages Honor Flight in central Florida. We raise money locally to fly WWII vets to Washington, DC (at no cost to the vet) to see the WWII Memorial and other memorials as time permits. Most of the vets are in their late 80's, so medical problems are common. Each vet is accompanied by a guardian (escort) who generally looks after the vet during the day. We encourage anyone who is (or was) a trained medical professional (nurses, EMTs, paramedics, physicians, etc) to volunteer to be guardians. We also ask those people to help us review medical information on each vet so we are prepared. We do not deny an vet because of a medical condition (unless his physicain tells us he should not fly), but we do want to know as much as we can so we are prepared.

Recently, one of the people who volunteers (general helping out) indicated that she could not help in any area leveraging her medical background because she was not licensed to practice nursing in FL but held a current license from the state of Illinois. Thus she is not legally allowed to do any form of nursing, including assessing the medical state of a vet, in Florida.

What are the rules here?

Thanks for any thoughts

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I'm very familiar with the Honor Flights - thanks for all you do for our older vets. Several of my pts have been able to take advantage of this and they just love it.

I actually am in IL and my understanding is that we (RNs and APNs) would have a waiver signed by the pt/vet and/or family and we would not be providing medical care but just assisting the escort. So we would not be providing medical care therefore don't need a license.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

And if in the course of your being an unpaid volunteer assistant an emergency should occur, the Good Samaritan act should cover you quite nicely. Don't make trouble where there isn't likely to be any.