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Healthcare legislation in Florida

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Healthcare legislation in Florida

One of the factors that have led to the development of public health is federal and state

healthcare legislation. Legislations are constituted by the legislative body such as the city

council, state general assembly, and the congress (Pollack, 2018). Although that legislation of

healthcare is a long, complex procedure that involves political views, interests of the

stakeholders, and feasibility considerations, the process majorly depends on the adequate

evidence from the research. The evidence obtained f4om the research is the one that is used to

form the framework of the new legislation. When enacting legislation, the legislators should

have an implementation process in their mind. Pollack (2018) argues that the policy changes on

the public policy have led to improved public health legislation. This paper will focus on the

Florida Legislature 1337 Nursing of the 2018 and determine its impact on healthcare both in the

United States and Florida. And also determine its impact on the nursing practice.

In 2018, the Florida House of Representatives amended their statutory laws and replaced

"advanced registered nurse practitioner" with "advanced practice registered nurse." The

legislation required all nurses who wish to practice nursing at the level of advanced practice

registered nurse to acquire the current nursing license that proves that they are eligible to provide

their services as nurses in the state of Florida. The nurse also is required to provide evidence that

they have met all the minimum requirements to be registered as APRNs. The legislation also

required the department of health to provide policies and procedures that will enable a smooth
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transition from ARNP to APRN and determine which nurses are suitable to be registered to be

APRNS. (Unruh et al., 2018) states that the change of the licensing the name to APRN will

conform with the nursing regulation in Florida and other nursing regulatory bodies in the United

States. Most of the nursing boards in the United States supported the amendment and cited this

as a positive move in the nursing practice. The majority of the nursing boards in the state of

Florida worked with the legislators to ensure the amendment and the new legislation to make its

way to become a law in Florida that will govern licensing and registration of Advanced nursing

personnel. The new bill removes a section of the nurse practice act that permits the licensing of

the clinical nurse specialist (Pollack, 2018). Therefore, this gives a new challenge to the nursing

practitioner in the state of Florida since they will need to register a new license that makes them

be recognized as APRNs and practice in the state of Florida. The CNS nurses will work under a

supervision of a doctor, and if they are proven to be eligible, they will be permitted to prescribe

medications immediately after they have registered with the drug enforcement administration.

As a result of the Florida state nursing legislation that introduced APRNs in the states,

more legislations have been enacted to ensure that APRNs are working independently, playing

significant roles in public health. Recently the APRNs were permitted to recommend controlled

medications, gadgets, medical services, solid therapeutic products, and other hardware and

supplies to the patients without much restriction. The APRNs are allowed to do this after they

have worked before with the physician and are proven to possess such capabilities. Autonomous

prescription of medications and other healthcare services the APRNs does not require

collaboration with a doctor and could be a key component of the scope of hone for APRNs, as

well as being portion of the APRN Agreement, which looks for to attain consistency of state

direction of APRN hone (Kumar & Williams, 2018). Since the implementation of the new
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legislation in the State of Florida, the nursing practice has improved progressively. Extension of

APRN practices would result in the employment of new APRNs as well as support staff, and also

it will lead to the increment within the use of supplies and other medical resources. The greater

employment would lead to more investment and thus an increment in occupations, and in turn,

more investing by these new employees. The more prominent utilization of physical resources

would lead to an increment in occupations and investing by those utilized within the businesses

creating the resources throughout the state of Florida (Unruh et al., 2018). Hence the increment

in work and generation due to extended APRN hone would have a multiplier impact distant past

the initial expansion of APRN hones. Other ways to measure effects are to number the number of

employments made or to add up to yield, in both cases taking into account the multiplier impacts.

Florida healthcare legislation removed some restriction on the roles of the APRN

making them more flexible and this will increase their scope. Due to the increased scope of the

APRNs their demand will also increase the supply of APRNs in the state of Florida is expected

to increase by 11% by the end of 2025 (Unruh et al., 2018). It is expected that the demand of

APRNS in Florida will increase, and that increase in demand will be met with the increase in the

supply of APRNs. The removal of APRNs' restrictions will enable the state to meet the APRNs

supply of 25-70% required in that state. Furthermore, since APRNs will be utilized at full of their

capacity, this will help in reducing the tremendous pressure that is placed on the doctors since

the APRNs will perform some of the duties that the physician would have performed. The

APRNs will also help solve the problem caused by the lack of primary healthcare providers.

They will also help increase the number of anesthesiologists in most hospitals in Florida.

Removal of restrictions on the APRNs would enable them to perform some of the physicians'
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duties. Therefore, this would reduce the cost of healthcare services since the APRNS are paid

less compared to the doctors.

Furthermore, the use of APRNs as primary healthcare providers will lower the need to

seek a costly acute care program. Also, the patient-doctor consultation fees will go down since

the APRNs will be paid less than the physicians. Therefore, removing the restrictions to the

APRNs in Florida will generally lower the cost of healthcare services. The state economy will

also be positively affected by the removal of APRNs restrictions because new jobs will be

created, increasing revenues in Florida hence increasing the expenditure of the people, which are

likely to improve the state's economy.

Removal of APRNs restrictions has an impact on the state of Florida's economy and

impacted the health system in Florida. Unruh et al. (2018) argued that if states could abolish

restrictions on APRNs, nurses could boost access to health services and at a lower cost. For the

states to fully unlock the full potential of Using APRNs, they should fully support and subsidize

education programs to meet the increased demand by students who want to join such programs.

Studies have indicated that even before abolishing APRNs' restrictions, there is a need to expand

the education program to accommodate all students. Unruh et al. (2018) report that nursing

schools are turning down the application of students who want to pursue APRNs even before the

abolition of the restrictions on their practice due to lack of proper educational program support.

The education program can be supported by offering the program at a lower cost. Another

benefit of removing restrictions on APRNs is that most people will have access to professional

healthcare providers, keeping them healthy and productive, hence improving Florida's economy.

However, it should be noted that despite that the abolition of the APRNs comes with a lot of

benefits, it should be noted that implementation of that legislature will be very costly to the state.
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References

Kumar, C. D., & Williams, D. A. (2018). Florida One Step Closer. Journal of Emergency

Nursing, 44(6), 645-646.

Pollack, P., Keshia, M., Rutkow, L., & McGinty, E. E. (2018). The importance of policy change

for addressing public health problems. Public Health Reports, 133(1_suppl), 9S-14S.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0033354918788880

Unruh, L., Rutherford, A., Schirle, L., & Brunell, M. L. (2018). Benefits of less restrictive

regulation of advance practice registered nurses in Florida. Nursing outlook, 66(6), 539-

550. https://www.nursingoutlook.org/article/S0029-6554(18)30201-X/pdf