Importance of Nurse Legislator
Over the years, nurses have been elected to state legislatures where they continued to draw their past experience in nursing to promote health care in the nation. The experience in patient care and nursing background helped the nurse legislators to serve their constituents effectively. A great example of a state legislator nurse is Denise Grimsley who serves the state of Florida in the House of Representatives for eight years now (Pinnell, 2012). Currently, she is a Republican member who represents Southwest and Central Florida and serves at the Florida State Senate.
According to Grimsley, she has been using her nursing background to listen to the people and understand their situations, which, as she thinks, has made her a more effective legislator (Nurse Oncourse Learning, 2012). During her career, she fought to stop the bureaucratic procedures because she believed it would improve the nursing sector and create more opportunities for the industry. However, her greatest accomplishment in the House of Representatives was the revamping of the nursing education system and the Board of Nursing.
In addition, she sponsored the HB 1209 in 2009, which led to the removal of the rulemaking authority within the nursing board (Nurse Oncourse Learning, 2012). This bill established new standards of approval in the nursing programs as the board members were expected to act within specific timeframes, which were prescribed for the particular programs to be deemed approved. In three years, the bill came into force and forced the board of nursing to approve 111 nursing education programs, which increased the spots available for student nurses by 47% (Nurse Oncourse Learning, 2012). Such step has significantly improved the health care system in Florida. Finally, Grimsley took part in the creation of the Medicaid reform bill.
References
Nurse Oncourse Learning. (2012, June 18). Nurse politicians draw inspirations from clinical. Retrieved from https://www.nurse.com/blog/2012/06/18/nurse-politicians-draw-inspiration-from-clinical-experiences/
Pinnell, G. (2012, April 13). Campaign issues – State Senate District 21: Grimsley, McCland. The Ledger.