Continuing Education Changes

The Board has posted new proposed rule changes to section 216 "Continuing Education". The Board used to audit the CEUs for randomly selected nurses and if they were found to be lacking the required number of hours, an investigation was opened and disciplinary action taken, which might eventually result in suspension of the nurse's license. The new rules will have the Board doing random audits, but if the nurse is non compliant the nurse's license will not be renewed. This makes the process of stopping the nurse from practice much quicker. The nurse can still be investigated and additional disciplinary action taken. Then, if a nurse is found non-compliant and does not get renewed the very next renewal period the same nurse will also be subject to an audit.

I really dislike this rule because it takes nurses out of practice for something as simple as not enough CEUs or not responding to the Board (another reason to be sure that your address is kept current with the Board) when audited. CEUs are not a way to maintain competency, as anyone who has done a home study or online study knows and to use CEUs like this does not appear to be a good use of regulatory power.

Texas nurses need to join nursing associations and fight rules like this!