[Maine-NPs] New law regarding NPs supervising NPs enacted today in Maine Senate

[Robert Howe]

LD 1598, as amended, was enacted in the Maine Senate today, having been enacted in the House yesterday. It now goes to Governor Baldacci for his signature. 
The intent of the bill is to allow certain nurse practitioners to provide the necessary 24 months of supervision for new NPs. The following is a summary of the amended bill: 


"This amendment changes the bill by replacing the term "qualified independent nurse practitioner" with the term "supervising nurse practitioner" to more accurately describe the position. It retains the bill's provisions for the position requiring 24 months of supervised practice and the approval of the State Board of Nursing. It adds to the requirements 5 years of practice in the same specialty and working in a clinical health care field for a minimum of 10 years." 
MNPA initially took a Neither-For-Nor-Against position on the bill due mostly to problems in the way it was drafted. For example, as originally drafted, the supervising NP would have been required to have at least 10 years experience in the field of medicine! But we submitted an amendment changing this to 10 years experience in a clinical health care field, and other changes. Once the amendement was adopted, we supported the bill from that point on. Please let me know if you have any questions. 

Bob Howe 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.nurse.net/pipermail/maine-nps/attachments/20070612/4e719828/attachment.html