Health professions report: Promising Scope of Practice Models

"One challenge facing the health care community is to develop more uniform standards for professional licensure, while retaining sufficient flexibility to meet the unique needs of each state" say the authors of Promising Scope of Practice Models for the Health Professions. They note significant variation in the state regulation of specific areas as related to four health professions: nurse practitioners and independent practice, physical therapists and the authorities to refer and diagnose, physician assistants and the prescription of controlled substances, and paramedics and the administration of intravenous infusions.
Their suggestions include establishing scope of practice review mechanisms such as those in New Mexico and Iowa, not allowing a regulatory board for one profession to oversee a different profession, and adopting measures that address the lack of uniformity among state practice acts. Examples of such measures include the Uniform Emergency Volunteer Health Practitioners Act and profession-specific model practice acts. The report is a publication of the Center for the Health Professions, University of California, San Francisco.