"This bill repeals the provision limiting ARNPs from dispensing more than 72 hours of controlled substances."
Governor Christine Gregoire, March 25, 2008.
Mission Statement
ARNPs United of Washington State is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting ARNP practice by coordinating legislative, educational, and networking activities of Nurse Practitioners throughout Washington State.
Why Join the Nurse Practitioner Directory?
In a world, career and life, where the information age has truly arrived and our tremendous efforts as Health Care Providers may go unnoticed, it could only be deemed advantageous that we find a way to link together as professionals for acknowledgement, assistance or information sharing. Collectively we have survived trials and tribulations making us a wealth of information and experience for each other and our communities. We are all in this together, sign up today for the NP Directory.
Please Help Your Texas NP Counterparts
Jean Gisler is a family nurse practitioner in Victoria, Texas and has sent this brief survey on behalf of the Texas Coalition for Nurses in Advanced Practice (CNAP). Laws regarding advanced practice nursing (APN) prescriptive authority are very restrictive in Texas, and CNAP is initiating efforts to attain independent practice. Physicians have expressed concern that if APNs have independent prescriptive authority, APNs will become owners of practices and will directly compete with physicians. In addition, they need your perspective on the advantages of independent practice for APNs. Therefore, CNAP is gathering information from “independent” states, such as Washington, regarding independent prescriptive authority. We would appreciate your responses to the following questions.
- In what state do you practice?
- Has independent prescriptive authority helped your ability to practice? How?
- Has independent prescriptive authority improved access to health care in your state? If so, are any statistics available to support this?
- How many (total number or percentage) APNs own their own practices (APN is not employed by a physician or a facility)?
Please email your responses to: jean.gisler [at] crossroadsfp.com
DOH Takes Steps to Speed Licensing and Cut Backlog
The Department of Health launched a new computer licensing system in February. As many of you know, there was a rise in the backlog during that startup. This has caused serious delays in processing licenses and renewals.
There is good news, during the past several weeks, the backlog has dropped from 18 days to about 10 days. The Department expects processing to continue to speed up. Many factors have contributed to the improvement. Some of the most important are:
- Staff is learning the system.
- Additional hardware, memory and Internet capacity has improved system performance.
- Staff resources have been added.
The Department has also focused attention on the most urgent license renewals. This will help to avoid having licenses expire when the department has already received a renewal with the correct information and fee.
Those seeking renewals can help speed the process. Our automatic renewal system is working smoothly. If a customer submits the correct fee, provides required information and has no changes to a license, the Department can process the renewal in a day or two. By contrast, manual renewals are currently taking about two weeks to process. Manual renewals have to be done when a customer wants to make changes, such as in an address, forgets to submit continuing education information or submits the incorrect fee. The Department hopes to see the two-week lag time reduced to less than a week very soon. The Department is encouraging customers to submit address changes separately. This allows them to get a faster renewal. Customers can send changes in names or address to either their email box or fax machine. The email address is hpqa.csc [at] doh.wa.gov and the fax number is 360.236.4818. The Department is working hard to get their new system running smoothly.
Articles Wanted
ARNP Care would welcome reader submissions for articles. Articles can be on any topic relevant to ARNPs and should be 800 words or less in length. Submissions should be sent as a MS Word .doc file or as a text file. Send your articles or queries to care [at] nurse.net.WSNA Centennial Celebration a Success!
The Washington State Nurses Association celebrated their Centennial on May 6, 2008. Ann Darlington was our photographer of the day and snapped some candid photos.
Board of Director Officers
At our January meeting the Board of Directors voted in our officers. They are:
President: Ann Darlington
Vice President: Heather Bradford
Secretary: Kristi Farrell
Treasurer: Grace Grymes Chapman
Communications Chair: Bob Smithing
ARNP Care: Therese Vafaeezadeh
Website: Robyn Choffel
Special Projects: Jeanne Boudrieau
Public Relations Co-Chairs:
Jeanne Boudrieau and Deb Smith
Membership Chair: Catherine Luria
Members: Grace Grymes Chapman, Kristi Farrell, Jeanne Boudrieau
Legislative Chair: Heather Bradford
ARNP Salary Survey 2006
Thanks to the work done by Marie-Annette Brown, Phd, ARNP, FAAN and Louise Kaplan, PhD, ARNP results from the 2006 salary survey are now available. Appropriate financial compensation is essential for Washington State ARNPs. As legally autonomous professionals, ARNPs assume demanding roles and provide high quality care to hundreds of thousands of people in Washington State. Until recently there has been little data about the salaries of Washington State nurse practitioners. In 2006 a statewide survey was conducted of Washington State ARNPs that yielded a strong response rate of 65%. Participants were asked to indicate their ARNP related income for 2005. The data reports salary information for ARNPs practicing in Washington and working full time, defined as 30 or more hours per week.
ARNP Prescriptive Authority Primer
What does it take to get prescriptive authority as an ARNP in WA State? The processes required to acquire your initial (and renewed) ARNP license and to procure prescriptive authority have changed since the AUWS website first posted that basic information in its document, "ARNP & ARNP with Prescriptive Authority Renewal". Jeanne Boudrieau revised the guide. To learn more, go to the (drum role, please) "Prescriptive Authority Primer." It is intended to be a step-by-step guide to acquiring licensure and prescriptive authority. We hope you find it informative and useful.
Membership Benefits
- Our own professional lobbyist working on legislation that affects and benefits you.
- Up to date, and informative monthly newsletter ARNP Care.
- ARNPs United of Washington State active web site.
- Central office for information exchange.
- Everyone invited to become actively involved in ARNPs United of Washington State leadership positions and Legislative Committee.
- Membership is tax deductible.
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