Governor Newsom has signed SB 1302 into law, the Board of Registered Nursing’s sunset review bill. CSA has been engaged heavily this year in legislative and regulatory advocacy efforts to help shape the outcome of this bill. We want to make sure CSA members have a clear understanding of what the new law does, what it does not do, and what it means for how anesthesia care is delivered at facilities across the state.
Importantly, SB 1302 does not expand the scope of practice for nurse anesthetists. It gives CRNAs no authority they did not already have.
What SB 1302 changed is the definition of the practice of nursing, which is what a registered nurse (RN) may do. The new language confirms that an RN may administer medications and therapeutic agents at the direction of a CRNA, but only to the extent the CRNA’s own law already allows that direction. For a CRNA, that law is Article 7 of the Nursing Practice Act as recently amended by AB 876, and it allows direction only within the scope of an order from a physician, dentist or podiatrist for a specific patient and a specific episode of care. Without a physician’s order, an RN cannot be directed by a CRNA.
SB 1302 also added nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives to the list of providers whose order allows an RN to act. CRNAs were not added. That is the second year in a row the Legislature has declined to give CRNAs ordering authority.
CSA has prepared a fact sheet with more information on the implications of the new law – to access this document please email mmacnee@csahq.org.