{"id":27396,"date":"2020-02-12T08:28:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T14:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27396"},"modified":"2020-02-14T14:05:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T20:05:28","slug":"surgical-technologist-standards-fail-to-advance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27396","title":{"rendered":"Surgical technologist standards fail to advance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers did not advance a bill from general file Feb. 11 that would establish a registry and a minimum standard of competence for surgical technologists.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Mark Kolterman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB205, as introduced by Sen. Mark Kolterman of Seward, would require that surgical technologists:
\n\u2022 be at least 19 years old;
\n\u2022 have a high school or equivalent diploma;
\n\u2022 be of good moral character; and
\n\u2022 provide evidence of certification, completion of an accredited education program or a certified competency assessment completed by a licensed health care professional.<\/p>\n

A surgical technologist also would be required to document any felony or misdemeanor convictions when applying to the registry.<\/p>\n

Kolterman said the bill would promote public health without creating barriers to entry for the profession.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a significant need for surgical technologists to be regulated by the state for the safety of our citizens,\u201d Kolterman said.<\/p>\n

A Health and Human Services Committee amendment would require a registered surgical technologist to perform their duties under the authority of a licensed health practitioner. It also
\nwould require any facility or person to report to the state Department of Health and Human Services any action taken against a surgical technologist based on his or her alleged incompetence.<\/p>\n

Sen. Suzanne Geist of Lincoln said she supported LB205 because minimum standards should apply to anyone working in an operating room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a different arena than a hair salon,\u201d Geist said. \u201cAt some point in a surgery this individual may have their hands inside a human.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Matt Williams of Gothenburg also supported the bill. A registry would become a recruiting tool, he said, by raising the credentials of surgical technologists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a great deal of job satisfaction and recognition that comes with the fact that now they are recognized through a registry,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Arch of La Vista said a registry was unnecessary, in part because there have been no reports of negative patient outcomes caused by surgical technologists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need more barriers; we don\u2019t need more costs,\u201d Arch said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte said the bill would \u201chamstring\u201d rural hospitals that already are struggling to fill positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is professional protectionism,\u201d Groene said. \u201c[Surgical technologists] want to turn around and restrict other people to take the same path they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blair Sen. Ben Hansen also opposed LB205, saying there had been no public outcry demanding action on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the real, true function of registration and licensing is to protect the consumers, you\u2019d expect the consumers to be lobbying for registration,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cI didn\u2019t see any.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amendment failed on a vote of 22-12. Twenty-five votes were needed. The bill then failed to advance to select file on a vote of 15-12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers did not advance a bill from general file Feb. 11 that would establish a registry and a minimum standard of competence for surgical technologists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[143],"class_list":["post-27396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-human-services","tag-sen-mark-kolterman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/LB205Kolterman2-11-20a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27396"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27519,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27396\/revisions\/27519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}