March 16th was the last day that bills could be heard in committee. 17 bills were on the Senate Health Committee agenda. After 4.5 hours of patiently waiting,HB2236, Advance Practice Registered Nurses strike everything amendmentwas finally heard.

Rory Hays, AzNA lobbyist, spoke in favor of the bill which was amended to address only the removal of the collaboration language from the Powers and Duties of the Board section of the Nurse Practice Act (NPA) and move language that described the "consult and refer" conditions from Rules to Statute. Steve Barclay, lobbyist for ArMA, advised the committee that ArMA was taking a neutral position on the revised bill.

HB2236 passed 6 votes in favor (Lesko, Hobbs, Begay, Barto, Bradley, & Pancrazi), none against, and one not voting (Yee). The bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote. If it passes the Senate, it goes directly to the full House for vote (without the requirement for hearing in a committee) and then to the Governor’s desk to be signed. Notices will be sent out when the dates for those two votes are scheduled. 

As mentioned in earlier messages, stakeholder meetings (nurses, physicians and legislators) are planned for the summer to work on proposed legislation to be introduced in the 2017 legislature. Unfinished business will be discussed. For the remainder of this year, we will continue to consult with our lobbying team and the coalition to identify what strategies worked and what new approaches may be in order. We will consult with other states who have faced similar arguments against full and direct access to APRN care and learn from their successes. It is our intention to continue to return to the legislature as many times as it takes to achieve all of the original goals for our APRN Consensus Model legislation.

Thank you for your support and feedback - it was quite an inspiration to witness the tremendous involvement of so many nurses. We will continue to need the help of each and every nurse in the remaining Senate and House votes and in the sessions to come in 2017. With strong and sustained effort, we will surely achieve all of our goals. Updates will continue to be posted here on the AzNA website as well as on facebook and twitter (links at top of page, upper left hand corner).