AMA Adopts ASA Led Resolution Opposing the Onerous APRN Initiative

On November 13, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a resolution championed by physician anesthesiologists in AMA’s policymaking body - the House of Delegates - that effectively engages the entire house of medicine in a strategic initiative to oppose the efforts of non-physicians at the state and federal level to dismantle physician-led team-based models of care and, specifically, to oppose the harmful Advance Practice Register Nurses (APRN) Compact.  The APRN Compact includes provisions permitting nurse-only models of practice in states that participate in the Compact, regardless of individual state laws that may not permit such practice.

Resolution 214 (Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Compact), a patient-safety focused resolution, calls on AMA to convene a high-level in-person meeting of physician stakeholders to develop a national strategy -- including model legislation, consensus principles of agreement/solutions, and state public relations campaigns -- to oppose nurse-only or “independent” practice efforts, educate the public and policymakers, and oppose the inappropriate scope of practice expansion of non-physician healthcare practitioners. The resolution further calls for a report back to the 2018 Annual Meeting of the AMA House of Delegates. The resolution received broad support from representatives of state medical and national specialty delegations. The in-person meeting is expected to take place around the time of the AMA State Legislative Strategy Conference this coming January.

The APRN Compact was the subject of consideration in a number of states in 2017 and it is expected to be introduced as legislation in many more states in 2018.  The legislation creates an interstate compact that would authorize APRNs who have a multistate license to automatically practice without the involvement of a physician, regardless of what state law requires. The APRN Compact should be opposed since it usurps state law and takes many licensing decisions away from state legislatures and state boards of nursing.

To learn more about ASA’s efforts to promote and protect patient safety visit When Seconds Count at www.asahq.org/whensecondscount. Congratulations to the physician anesthesiologists in the AMA House of Delegates and our colleagues throughout the House of Medicine for promoting this patient-centered, physician-led care resolution!