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House Bill 3961 |
House Author: McReynolds et al. |
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Effective: 6-19-09 |
Senate Sponsor: Nelson |
House Bill 3961 amends provisions of the Occupations Code, the Education Code, and the Health and Safety Code relating to the regulation of nursing. The bill makes personal information collected by the Texas Board of Nursing confidential, establishes the board's authority to require physical and psychological evaluations if the board has probable cause to believe that the nurse or applicant is unable to practice nursing with reasonable skill and safety to patients, authorizes the board to suspend temporarily a nurse's license on proof of a positive drug screening or dismissal from a board-ordered peer assistance program, authorizes the board to require random drug screening as a condition of probation, and limits probation revocation hearings to the issue of whether the nurse violated the terms of probation.
House Bill 3961 provides conditions under which a nursing program operated in another state is considered to meet standards substantially equivalent to those of the board, and it provides eligibility requirements for graduates of certain out-of-state nursing programs to apply for an initial nursing license in Texas. The bill requires the nursing resource section to conduct a study of alternative ways to assure clinical competency of graduates of nursing educational programs. The bill makes changes to the surcharge assessed for a registered nursing license and a vocational nursing license.