HJBR Nov/Dec 2019

44 NOV / DEC 2019 I  Healthcare Journal of BATON ROUGE column nursing Each year, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) conducts business at their annual meeting and delegate assembly. In August 2019, this meeting was held in conjunction with The Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) Com- mission Meeting August 20–23, 2019. Both meetings gave members an opportunity to meet and network with nursing regulators from all over the country and the world to discuss important regulatory issues. Update on National Council of State board of Nursing The Core purpose of the Interstate Com- mission of Nurse Licensure Compact Ad- ministrators (ICNLCA) is to facilitate cross border practice through the implementa- tion of a nationally recognized, multistate license. ICNLCA enhances nurse mobility and public protection primarily through: • Maintaining uniform licensure stan- dards among party state boards of nurs- ing. • Promoting cooperation and collabora- tion between party states. • Facilitating the exchange of data and in- formation between party states; and • Educating stakeholders. Louisiana fully implemented the Nurse Licensure Compact on July 1, 2019 and, to date, 1,515 Louisiana RNs have converted their single state license to an NLC multi- state license, allowing them to practice in 31 states. NCSBN Annual Meeting and Delegate Assembly Along with a variety of presentations and activities, NCSBN hosted an exciting keynote speech from Elizabeth Iro, RN, chief nursing officer at the World Health Organization. She was formerly the Cook Islands’ secretary of health and chief nurs- ing officer and acting director, Hospital Health Services. Following are some of the highlights of NCSBN’s work in 2019: • The APRN Task Force, led by Kathy Thomas, NCSBN immediate past presi- dent, was convened, and that task force worked extremely hard on very difficult issues. We are all aware of the differenc- es in APRN recognition, regulation, and practice authority among states. The task force put forth recommendations endorsed by the board of directors for consideration at this delegate assembly. In response to a resolution at the 2018 Delegate Assembly, NCSBN convened a conference for nurse regulators to ex- plore and discuss the challenges and the nuances in regulation related to the APRN Consensus Model. Seventy-five members of NCSBN attended a meet- ing on April 10th. We went through each of those areas of the consensus model, step by step, and discussed each one. Two major themes emerged: licens-