Capitol Nursing News Briefs
A summary of current legislative and regulatory issues affecting nurses whether they be before the Texas Legislature, U.S. Congress, the Texas Board of Nursing or another state or federal agency. The emphasis is on state level issues but national level issues of special interest are also covered. The briefs are organized into two groups: New Topics and Ongoing News.
New Topics
Presidential Position on Health Care
1. Interim Charges for Committees of the Texas House of Representatives: For each legislative interim (time period between Texas biennial legislative sessions), the Lt. Governor and Speaker of the Texas House charge the committees of the Texas Senate and House of Representatives respectively to study various issues and to issue background reports and make recommendations for the next session of the Texas Legislature. Click here for the charges for this interim before the next legislative session begins in January 2009. Key health care committees are the House Committee on Public Health and House Committee on Human Services. The Lt. Governor has not issued interim charges for Senate Committees. Those are expected in late January or February 2008.
2. BON Moves to Revise Its Rules on Nursing Peer Review: Based on recommendations of its Nursing Practice Advisory Committee, the Board of Nursing (BON) at its October 2007 meeting voted to issue proposed rules making revisions to its Rule 217.19 (Incident-Based Nursing Peer Review) and 217.20 (Safe Harbor Nursing Peer Review) to reflect changes made to the laws governing mandatory reporting of nurse and nursing peer review by the 2007 Texas Legislature. The revisions constitute a complete rewrite of the current rules with a goal to make them easier for nurses to understand and to simplify the procedure for a nurse to request safe harbor nursing peer review. The proposed revisions were published in the Texs Register in November for a 30-day public comment period. TNA and others recommended a number of clarifications and changes to the proposed rules. This was not unexpected since the revisions were so extensive and prepared by the Nursing Practice Committee and BON staff under some very tight timelines. At its January 17-18 meeting, the BON is expected to adopt a number of the recommended changes and then re-issue the revisions as proposed rules so that there is an opportunity for public comment on the changes.
Ongoing News
Health Care Reform
Code Red: The Critical Condition of Health in Texas: In response to concern about what they describe as an impending health care crisis in Texas, the ten academic health institutions in Texas created the Task Force for Access to Health Care in Texas to address this issue. Task Force members also included small and large business employees, health care providers, insurers and consumers. All represented their own personal perspective and did not represent groups or organizations with which they are associated. Financial support for the project came solely from the academic health institutions. Click here to view the report. The task force continues to be active.
|
