Ohio House passes bill authorizing nurses to pronounce death

The Ohio House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a proposal that authorizes registered nurses to determine and pronounce death.

Under current state law, only physicians have the authority to pronounce death. That’s a potential problem, given the well-chronicled physician shortage that exists in the U.S., which is more acute in rural areas. Giving nurses this authority could help avoid prolonged waits for physicians to arrive and pronounce death.

House Bill 314 passed by a vote of 93-5. It has been assigned to the Senate’s Health, Human Services and Aging Committee, a Senate spokeswoman said.

The Ohio Nurses Association supports the bill and helped draft it, according to Elise Geig, the group’s health policy director. Geig said it’s important for nurses to be able to pronounce death so families don’t have to wait hours to be notified after a patient dies. Sometimes, for example, a patient dies but a nurse can’t inform the patient’s family of the death because doctors are too busy with other obligations–or simply not on the premises–to make an official death pronouncement, Geig said.

That’s more common in nursing homes or hospices, which typically don’t have full-time physicians on staff. The proposal does not authorize nurses to pronounce death in hospitals or ambulatory surgical centers because doctors are usually present at those types of facilities, Geig said.

About 20 states, including Arkansas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, have similar legislation.

The bill was introduced in October by Rep. Peter Ujvagi, a Toledo Democrat.

However, the state’s major physicians’ group opposes the legislation. The Ohio State Medical Association is against the proposal because it doesn’t require nurses to immediately notify a physician once a patient is pronounced dead. “The doctor-patient relationship is one that’s sacred and a doctor wants to be notified immediately when there’s such a major change in a patient’s condition as a patient expiring,” said Jason Koma, OSMA’s spokesman.

Photo from flickr user Doug McIntosh