Ensuring that patients have access to the quality health care professionals of their choice
Doctors fight advance-practice nurses' attempt at autonomy
Greenville Online
March 12, 2017
A bill that would give advance-practice registered nurses the ability to work without the supervision of a physician is being vigorously opposed by the state medical association. Nurses say the bill could increase health care access in a state plagued by provider shortages while doctors say they're concerned with patient safety if there's no physician oversight.
Nurse practitioners back bill for more access to write drug prescriptions
WISTV
February 21, 2017
COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) -
"A delay in healthcare" is how some nurse practitioners describe state laws preventing them from signing for certain prescriptions.
They say state law hinders their services to patients in the low-cost clinics where they work when an NP must seek a supervising physician's sign-off in order to prescribe patients things like controlled drugs, a walker, diabetic shoes, and hospice care.
South Carolina nurse practitioners battle for expanded authority in care
The Post and Courier
January 29, 2017
One day a week for 10 years, Stephanie Burgess made a trip to a clinic that serves the uninsured in rural Kershaw County and treated patients who might not otherwise have had access to health care. Burgess was never paid. A clinical professor in the College of Nursing at the University of South Carolina, she went to treat the poor and enrich her students' experience. Last year, she had to stop making the weekly trips. State law requires Burgess to sign a contract with a supervising doctor within 45 miles of where she is practicing. But the physician who oversaw Burgess retired. While the clinic remains open, the 300 patients she saw there each year were left without access to their primary care provider.
Nurse Practitioners with a Specialty in Psychiatric Mental Health
South Carolina Public Radio
October 18, 2016
This week Bobbi Conner talks with Dr. Joy Lauerer about the education, training and responsibilities of nurse practitioners who specialize in psychiatric mental health. Dr. Lauerer is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing and she is the lead faculty for the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Program at MUSC.