Why is the scope of practice important for nurses?

What are skills Registered Nurses allowed to do in their scope of practice?

• What are skills that registered nurses allowed to do in their scope of practice

• Answer:

  Too much to list here, but to start, they perform assessments, they take vital signs, they perform skills like starting IVs, giving medications, inserting/removing foley (bladder) catheters, perform wound care, etc. Depending on the nurse's individual job requirements they may be trained to perform additional skills unique to their specialty, for example, as an OB nurse I have been trained in how to interpret fetal monitor tracings. Cardiac nurses learn how to read ECG tracings. Nurses who work in the OR might be trained to scrub in for surgery and and assist the doctor, handing instruments and maintaining the sterile field. I'm pretty sure you could find more information by simply using an internet search engine and looking up your state board of nursing's website, which would list an RN's scope of practice pretty clearly.