Owing to the mobility of our society and the information expansion, nurses also have become more mobile, traveling from state to state and confronting a struggle with the licensure reciprocity process, which at times compromises incomes. The process of creating a nurse licensure compact started in 1996 at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Delegate Assembly, followed by the unanimous endorsement of a mutual recognition model of nursing regulation at the Delegate Assembly in 1997.
The general purposes of this compact are to:
1. facilitate the states' responsibility to protect the public's health and safety;
2. ensure and encourage the cooperation of party states in the areas of nurse licensure and regulation;
3. facilitate the exchange of information between party states in the areas of nurse regulation, investigation, and adverse actions;
4. promote compliance with the laws governing the practice of nursing in each jurisdiction; and
5. invest all party states with the authority to hold a nurse accountable for meeting all state practice laws in the state in which the patient is located at the time care is rendered through the mutual recognition of party state licenses.
In 1999, Maryland became the first state to approve the compact. Closely behind were Arkansas, Delaware, Iowa, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin, of which the legislators approved the compact in 2000. Currently, additional states include Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia, with New Jersey coming on line soon.
State legislation must be enacted to authorize the Nurse Licensure Compact. Each state entering the compact also adopts rules and regulations to administer and implement the compact. Originally, the pact was for registered nurses and licensed practical nurses/licensed vocational nurses only. In 2002, this area was expanded to include advanced practice registered nurses, and Utah is the first state to recognize this new group.
The Nurse Licensure Compact Administrators was developed in 2000 to protect the public's health and safety by promoting compliance with the laws governing the practice of nursing in each state through the mutual recognition of party state licenses (Figure 1). All nurses should review their state practice act and new legislation to ensure they are practicing appropriately.
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