Jump to content

Nurses performing high complexity testing


CMCDCHI

Recommended Posts

The update from ASCP reads:

ASCP DISAGREES WITH CMS NURSING POLICY

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services formally responded on March 13 to a letter from ASCP, the ASCP Board of Certification (BOC), and the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS). CMS was responding to a letter, detailed in last month’s ePolicy. ASCP, BOC and ASCLS wrote CMS, urging the Agency to respond in writing that the biological sciences do NOT include nursing. Unfortunately, CMS still is holding fast to its April 1, 2016 announcement that a bachelor’s degree in nursing is equivalent to a degree in biological sciences. Per CLIA, this means that an individual with a bachelor’s degree in nursing can perform high complexity testing and that they do not need to satisfy any clinical training requirement before doing so. It also means that an individual with a nursing degree can qualify to direct a moderate complexity lab or serve as the supervisor of a high complexity laboratory.

ASCP disagrees with CMS’ position that a rule is necessary to change the Agency’s policy. ASCP is concerned that a rule change could take years to accomplish and that to protect patient health urgent and timely action is needed to fix this policy.

Note that it reiterates the idea from CMS that a B.S. in Nursing is equivalent to a B..S. in biological sciences.  In the US, however, I am not sure you will find many institutions that employ Medical Lab Scientists that are not also board certified to work in a clinical lab.  I do not see many nurses passing a board exam.  So I do not think because CMS decides (arbitrarily, in my opinion) that a B.S. is a B.S. is a B.S., this will result (for now anyway) in a influx of unqualified nurses working in the lab..

And yes, I agree that with the present administration, there is, indeed, a lot of B.S. being generated here.

Scott

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, SMILLER said:

Note that it reiterates the idea from CMS that a B.S. in Nursing is equivalent to a B..S. in biological sciences.  In the US, however, I am not sure you will find many institutions that employ Medical Lab Scientists that are not also board certified to work in a clinical lab.  I do not see many nurses passing a board exam.  So I do not think because CMS decides (arbitrarily, in my opinion) that a B.S. is a B.S. is a B.S., this will result (for now anyway) in a influx of unqualified nurses working in the lab..

And yes, I agree that with the present administration, there is, indeed, a lot of B.S. being generated here.

Scott

I agree, however, it opens the door to hospitals considering nurses as satisfactory substitutes for laboratory professionals.  It's hard in some markets to hire a MT/MLS/CLS; I'm thinking rural communities in particular.  I don't think any manager with laboratory experience would hire a nurse to perform lab work unless they were forced to by administration or desperation.  On the flip side, if nurses are considered qualified to manage laboratories, who's to say they wouldn't consider a nurse for employment.

Today's my Friday doom and gloom attitude.  I have a bad feeling I'm going to wake up pissed for 3.9 more years.  :angered:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some how I missed this thread when it first came up.  One of my previous employers chose a person with a BS in business to be the director of the lab.  The guy was running a soccer store at the time.  This person was chosen over a current lab employee who had been the interim director for a number of months and was more than qualified with a BS in Medical Technology and a MS in personnel management and many years of experience.  The business guy was hired because he was a golfing buddy of the VP doing the hiring.  In the process they ignored all of the requirement posted on the the job description.  The guy was a disaster!!!  The toughest part of my job became the dumbing down of my answers to his questions so that he might have some vague idea of what I was saying.  Those questions usually came from someone else and then he would go and make a rather miserable attempt at repeating what I had said.  He was in the position for a number of years and was finally promoted out of the lab.  The person who replaced him, while more qualified on paper, was even worse but that's a story for another day.  Needless to say, the last one was the reason I left that fine establishment.  

What I am getting at with this little story is that, as I see it, the government / nurse organizations are attempting to force the rest of you to live through what a very poor upper management team forced on us.  I hope this never happens to any of you but if it does you have my heart felt sympathy.  :disbelief:       :fear:    :comfort:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On of the plus sides of the CMS announcement that BS in nursing is equivalent to a degree in biological sciences is that it is a lot easier to find a BSN to help me perform POC competency assessments.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pink top tube, come to UK we have had same as nurses since 2004, the fact both us and nurses haven't then seen a pay rise since 2009 is another issue!

 

in terms of the real issue the proposal seems crazy, at the margins does it help to allow one qualified Proffesional WITH ADEQUATE TRAINING to do some of the role of another qualified Proffesional, of course it does. However this seems to leave the ground open to simply hire a nurse and let them loose crossmatching. 

In the U.K. There has been a move to give prescribing rights to non-medical Proffessions and nurses were at the front of the queue but other Proffessions were involved but it was not heavily taken up as it required lots of additional training and ongoing competency assessment, and most didn't need it for the whole formulary. 

It was mentioned up thread its to do with Veterans and people assumed treating them, it might actually be to do with Medical Corpsmen in Army or Navy who might have an underlying nursing degree but will have had significant multidisciplinary training and then leave the service and can not get a job anywhere as their training route is non traditional. 

Edited by dansmith17
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe that it has more to do with HHS seeing a need to fix the shortage of available lab scientists, and coming up with a political solution that seemingly will allow any B.S. degreed person to be eligible.  Of course, this is a short-sighted approach that would, if fully instituted, result in a degredation of patient care at a greater expense.  But this is not yet a done deal.

(Next thing you know, they will allow just any unqualified person to become a physician, attorney -- even president...  oops, wait a minute...)

Scott

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not trying to get too political but in my humble opinion, this is a prime example of unqualified bureaucrats forcing decisions where  they have no knowledge or experience just authority while ignoring input from those who really know what is going on.  The decisions they are NEVER held accountable for making.    

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Advertisement

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.