From Susan’s Desk: Caught Up in Red Tape? ISAPN Can Help

 

As the executive director of ISAPN, I talk about membership a lot. What I speak about less often is how individual members’ needs actively guide and affect my work every day. In my role, I am tasked with big-picture initiatives, but I also understand that cultural changes for APRNs happen in the details: how legislation is implemented in state regulatory agencies and in the organizations, you work in.

How do we know how legislation should be interpreted? We helped write and negotiate the regulations that agencies are implementing.
 

Changing Culture to Reduce Barriers

The first few years after a new regulation is adopted, it may be misinterpreted, especially down at the facility level. Right now, we’re focused on the culture of institutions so that they implement the language correctly, without additional barriers.

If members are dealing with an agency misinterpretation or outdated forms, they can let us know because we know who to reach out to and we work to fix that.

For example, I spent the weekend going through the APRN licensure. They moved APRN licensure and new licenses online. Guess what? I looked at the controlled substance license application online, and it had out of date verbiage from previous to our last change.

Sometimes that won’t mean a thing. You’ll get the signature of the people you need, and you’re going to get your controlled substances license.

But if you catch somebody who reads all that fine print and they say “the language says ‘supervising physician.’ Then you end up spending hours trying to untangle the mess since APRNs don’t have supervising physicians.” There’s other language like your scope of practice must be aligned with the physician’s scope of practice in order to prescribe certain medications. That’s not true anymore. It used to be true, but it’s not true now.

People bump up against those all the time. We are the body fixing all of that.
  

Resolving Issues for APRNs

Recently, an ISAPN member contacted me about an issue she was having in her hospital.

The hospital she works in has a policy that requires pre-surgery history and physicals be signed by a physician. They can be completed by an APRN, but they need to be signed by a physician. This policy delayed treatment for her patient.

Now, I have routine phone conversations with the Illinois Hospital Association. I was on the phone with them on another matter, and I let them know how this internal policy was impacting patient care. The person I talked to didn’t know their hospitals were doing this and agreed that educating their member hospitals on this issue would benefit everyone.

Those are the kinds of things we need to know about because we can begin working on it. Members can help us identify and begin solving those statewide issues.
 

Working for You

I’ve been doing regulatory work for nurses since 2006. As a member, you get access to this special expertise to help you navigate and resolve those red tape or agency issues.

If you’re a member, I prioritize your needs in my week. That’s one of the benefits of being a member. I’ll put you in contact with the right person and walk you through the steps you need to take. That’s my job. It’s what I do.

Sometimes you may not need to talk to me—you just need to tell me about an issue. You might not get a response, but please know that we’re still paying attention and we’re still addressing it.

The best way for you to reach me is by email. This is my private email. No one else has access, so you can feel safe providing information. If you’re experiencing a problem in your work setting, you don’t have to identify your work setting.

When contacting me, please remember to

• Provide as much detail about the issue as possible
• Get the name of the person that you talked to
   

Nothing in regulation ever happens overnight. No problems are created, and no problems are solved overnight. Period. End of story.

If you don’t start the conversation, it is never going to get fixed. When you share with us, we can begin the conversation. We can begin to erode these barriers and get to a point where there’s fewer instances of this than what we’re experiencing now.