Letter from ANNA to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) in support of NCSBN's State Licensure Compacts
February 3, 2005
Kathy Apple, MSN, RN
Executive Director
National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc.
111 East Wacker Drive #2900
Chicago, IL 60601
Dear Ms. Apple:
On behalf of the American Nephrology Nurses' Association's (ANNA) 11,000 RNs, NPs, and CNSs practicing in nephrology nursing with patients who have chronic kidney disease (CKD), including end-stage renal disease (ESRD), we would like to state our strong support for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing's (NCSBN) State Licensure Compacts. An article is being prepared for our newsletter, the ANNA Update, to fully educate our membership on this issue.
ANNA members, and the 300,000 patients on dialysis, would all benefit from passage of the Nurse Licensure Compact in all fifty (50) states. Currently, nurses who work with large dialysis providers that have multiple dialysis facilities in a relatively small geographic area, do cross state borders with different patient-care assignments. (An example is the metropolitan Washington, DC area, with large providers who have facilities in DC, Maryland and Virginia.) This makes it necessary for the nurse to have multiple state licenses, even though they may work for the same dialysis provider.
In addition to nurses working in dialysis, we are aware that nurses working in telehealth, home health, and education and training that perform long-distance monitoring of patients, or do hospital follow-up care by telephone, or training in multiple states, would benefit from the State Licensure Compacts. Further, the general mobility of the nursing workforce, the unpredictability of natural disasters, and the omnipresent threats of bioterrorism all point to the need to accommodate nurses for cross-state licensure.
The following statements are excerpted from ANNA's Health Policy Statement:
- ANNA supports grants to state Boards of Nursing and State Boards of Medicine to implement multistate licensure for health professionals through expansion of state compact process.
- ANNA supports improved provision of and access to telehealth services which includes both distance learning for professionals and patients as well as treatment and home monitoring of chronic disease in both Medicare and Medicaid.
ANNA is pleased to strongly support your efforts to bring more states under the State Licensure Compact. Please contact Nancy J. Sharp, MSN, RN, FAAN, Health Policy Consultant at 301-469-4997 or NurseSharp@aol.com for further information about nephrology nursing.
Sincerely,
Lesley C. Dinwiddie, MSN, RN, FNP, CNN
President