MORGANTOWN — The House of Delegates passed a bill on Tuesday that produced lengthy debate on Monday about supervision of nurse anesthetists.
HB 4432 is a 25-page bill to allow physician assistants to own their own practices. The subject of debate was a short section near the end to change how certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) are supervised.
Current code allows a person trained in a certified program accredited by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists to administer anesthesia under supervision of a physician or dentist. The new section changes that to allow a CRNA to administer anesthesia in cooperation with a physician, podiatrist or dentist.
Cooperation is defined as working together with each contributing an area of expertise in accord with their training levels. The provision is permissive, allowing each hospital to set its own policy.
An effort to amend the CRNA provision out of the bill failed on Monday.
On Tuesday, one of the amendment proponents, Delegate Bob Fehrenbacher, R-Wood, spoke up against the bill.
On Monday, to support his view, he cited a study that was revealed to be outdated and invalid. So, on Tuesday he cited a newer study, done in 2022 and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
It looked at 578,000 surgeries done in 23 hospitals involving physician-CRNA teams. It found that increasing the responsibilities of the physicians — essentially spreading their attention thinner — was associated with increases in risk and deaths.
For that reason, he said, he opposes eliminating direct supervision of CRNAs.
That was the only debate and the bill passed, 70-26, and goes to the Senate.
Locally, Republicans Mike DeVault, Phil Mallow, George Street, Amy Summers and Debbie Warner, and Democrat Joey Garcia voted for it. Republicans Geno Chiarelli, Buck Jennings and Joe Statler, and Democrats Anitra Hamilton, Evan Hansen and John Williams voted against it.
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