HJBR Jul/Aug 2019

44 JUL / AUG 2019 I  Healthcare Journal of BATON ROUGE column nursing Over the past several years, the Louisiana State Board of Nursing (LSBN) has noticed an increasing number of dis- ciplinary cases coming to our attention, wherein the complaint was delayed from the organization employing the RN or APRN which had responsibility for reporting the alleged infraction. Often, the organization doesn’t report the Nurse Practice Act (NPA) or criminal violations at all, nor does the nurse. LSBN may become aware of the complaint through an arrest Rap Batch report from the Louisiana State Police, or through an anonymous complaint from a third party. This results in a significant delay in LSBN’s investigation of the complaint, in violation of our mission to safeguard the life and health of the citizens of Louisiana by assuring that persons practicing as RNs and APRNs are competent and safe. Chapter 11. Nurses. Part I. Registered Nurses of Revised Statutes 37:911 et seq.1 sets out the law regarding the practice of registered nurses and advanced practice registered nurses in the state of Louisiana. §913 (14) further clarifies practice through the provision of definitions: “Registered nursing” means the practice of the scope of nursing which is appropri- ate to the individual’s educational level, knowledge, skills, and abilities, including: (a) Assessing the health status of an individual or group of individuals (b) Establishing a nursing diagnosis and identifying health care needs, or both (c) Establishing goals to meet identified health care needs (d) Planning nursing care measures (e) Implementing nursing care through such services as case finding, health instruction, health counseling, pro- viding care supportive to or re- storative of life and well-being, and executing health care regimens as prescribed by licensed physicians, dentists, or other authorized pre- scribers (f) Delegating nursing interventions to qualified nursing personnel in ac- cordance with criteria established by the board (g) Maintaining nursing care rendered directly or indirectly (h) Evaluating human responses to in- terventions (i) Teaching the theory and practice of nursing (j) Managing and supervising the practice of nursing Employer Responsibility for Reporting Nurse Violations of the Nurse Practice Act “When a healthcare institution becomes aware of an actual or suspected NPA vio- lation by a RN or APRN, they are required to report it to LSBN.”