Nurses at the Student Health Center might soon be able to write student prescriptions without seeking a doctor’s approval.House Bill 667, which was introduced on Jan. 8, will give Advanced Practice Nurses (APN) a limited authority to write prescriptions.According to the Ohio Nurses Association, the bill is being backed by a coalition of health care providers and will affect over 4,000 nurses in Ohio.Proponents of the bill say that giving authority to nurses will increase access to primary care and will enable doctors to spend greater amounts of time with more serious patients.”It would enable us to be more efficient and see patients in a more timely manner,” said Patricia Balassone, a primary care nurse practitioner at the Student Health Center.Balassone said the nurses can wait up to 30 minutes for a doctor to sign a prescription. With the bill, nurses can write the patient a prescription instead of waiting for a doctor to sign it.If the bill is passed, a board made up of qualified health care officials will decide what drugs the nurses can prescribe.The nurses will also be required to have a written agreement with the physician they work for explaining the types of medicine they can prescribe.”The physician decides what level of prescriptive authority a nurse practitioner will have,” said Kathey Larsen, government affairs specialist for the Ohio Nurses Association. “The physician still maintains control.”Balassone said the advanced nurses at the Student Health Center would only need authority to prescribe about four types of medicines.”We see a lot of the same kinds of things, so we’d be using a short list of medicines,” she said.According to an Ohio Nurses Association press release, “the APN must complete an advanced pharmacology course within a three year period prior to application for the prescriptive authority, and complete an additional 12 hours of courses every two years, in addition to license and certification requirements.”Regardless of the certifications and extra education that is required to get prescriptive authority, opponents of the bill say it still isn’t safe.Marla Eshelman, a spokeswoman for the Ohio State Medical Association, said the association has opposed legislation like House Bill 667 in the past, but has no official position on this one yet. “We have policy that indicates that we oppose prescriptive authority for non-physicians unless they have equivalent education,” Eshelman said. “I imagine we will be taking a position against House Bill 667.”But doctors at the Student Health Center said precautions will be taken to ensure that the nurses do not make mistakes in prescribing medicine.”We control that by screening patients a nurse practitioner can see and we have protocol to consult with the doctors,” said Dr. Roger Miller, assistant director of clinical services at OSU. “We consult probably about 50 percent of the time anyway.”Some students don’t mind that they wouldn’t have to see a doctor when they go to the health center.”I have no problem with a nurse prescribing if she has more education than a regular nurse,” said Lindsay Smith, a sophomore majoring in English. “I feel nurses pay more attention to you anyway.”Challen Missler, a 19-year-old sophomore, agrees with Smith.”Nurses do everything for doctors anyway,” Missler said.If this bill passes, having nurses with prescriptive authority won’t be a totally new experience to Ohio.Pilot programs for APNs with this authority were set up at Wright State University and Case Western Reserve University in 1992, and the University of Cincinnati added a pilot program in 1993.APNs at Wright State University do not work in the student health center on campus, and are only permitted to see people who are considered under served, said Margaret Clark Thompson, director of the pilot program.”APNs are very capable of handling primary care,” Thompson said. “It truly is a team approach in health care.”The program has received favorable evaluations, Thompson said.Dr. Ted Grace, director of the Student Health Center at Ohio State, said having nurses with prescriptive authority is cost-effective.”As an administrator, I can have one physician and two nurse practitioners for less than three physicians,” Grace said. “We’re able to have more people use the health center when we have physician extenders.”Grace also pointed out that students still have the right to see a doctor if they choose.Ohio, Illinois and Georgia are the only states that don’t allow APNs to write prescriptions.