FLORIDA NURSING LAWS AND RULES

Course overview

The practice of nursing requires specialized knowledge, skill, and independent decision making. Nursing careers take widely divergent paths¿practice focus varies by setting, by type of client, by different disease, therapeutic approach, or level of rehabilitation. Moreover, nurses are mobile and sophisticated and work in a society that is changing and asymmetrical for consumers. The result is that the risk of harm is inherent in the provision of nursing care. Because nursing care poses a risk of harm to the public if practiced by professionals who are unprepared or incompetent, the state, through its police powers, is required to protect its citizens from harm. That protection is in the form of reasonable laws to regulate nursing (NCSBN, 2014). Currently in each U.S. state and territory, a law known as a nurse practice act designates an authoritative body that defines and regulates the nursing practice of every nurse in every role. This authoritative body, known as a board of nursing, is responsible for ensuring that nurses who practice in that state are competent, safe, skilled, and knowledgeable about the standards set forth in that state¿s scope of practice for nurses. This course discusses those standards for the state of Florida as written by the Florida Board of Nursing in accordance with the Florida Statutes and Administrative Code.