We are pleased to report that in an ongoing effort to address acute workforce challenges in healthcare, Governor Maura Healey signed into law the Fiscal Year 2024 Supplemental Budget Act that makes permanent the state’s COVID-19 pandemic policy of allowing nursing school graduates and students in their final semester to practice nursing at in-patient health care settings for a limited time. In the coming weeks, the Department of Public Health will issue rules governing the time and process by which nursing graduate and final semester students can work in health care facilities.
Under the new law, facilities may allow graduate nurses and students in their last semester of nursing education practice nursing per the following requirements:
- The individual is employed by or providing health care services at the direction of a licensed health care facility or a licensed health care provider;
- The individual is directly supervised while providing health care services; and
- The employing licensed health care facility or licensed health care provider has verified that the individual is a graduate of a registered nursing or practical nursing program approved by the board or that the individual is a senior nursing student attending the last semester of a registered nursing or practical nursing program approved by the board.