Scope of Practice (SOP)

State licensing laws define the permissible scope of practice (SoP) for health care professionals. They specify who can do what to whom, in what settings, and under what conditions. The stated purpose of SoP laws and rules is to ensure consumers that health care workers conduct their practices only in the areas for which they are properly trained. However, as a number of prestigious expert groups have reported, SoP laws and rules too often protect the economic interests of health care professionals by unjustifiably preventing other types of health care professionals from providing competent, affordable, and accessible care. In many cases, proposals to expand SOP laws and rules become turf battles, pitting those who would expand SoP against those who resist such changes. As the PEW Health Professions Commission stated over a decade ago:

• The varying objectives and levels of specificity found in different professions scopes of practice are more than frustrating; they have encouraged a system that treat practice acts as rewards for the professions rather than a rational mechanism for cost-effective, high quality and accessible service delivery by competent practitionersStates should explore pathways to allow all professionals to provide services to the full extent of their current knowledge, training, experience and skills.

This CAC webinar featured two individuals who wrote the Pew Health Commissions reports and who have remained deeply involved in monitoring SoP developments. Theydescribed new proposals for a better way to fairly resolve SoP disputes.

Presenters:
Barbara Safriet
Public Member

Federation of State Board of Physical TherapyAt Yale Law School, Barbara Safriet served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Lecturer in Law from 1988 2006, and was a Dean's Senior Fellow in Law for 2006 07.In addition to her academic administrative duties, she taught seminars on Health Law and Policy, and The Regulation of Health Care Providers.She has served as a member of The Pew Health Professions Commission and its Taskforce on Health Care Workforce Regulation, and as a Health Law Consultant and Presenter for the Rockefeller Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, the Association of Academic Health Centers, the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, the U.S. Public Health Service, the National Rural Health Association, the National Council of State Legislatures, and the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress.She has served as a member of the Data Safety & Monitoring Committees of the Wilmer Institute's Macular Photocoagulation Study and the National Eye Institute's Multicenter Trial of Cryotherapy for Retinopathy of Prematurity.

Catherine Dower
Associate Director,Research
UCSF Center for the Health Professions

At the UCSF Center for the Health Professions, Catherine Dower focuses her work on research and policy projects.She co-directs the Health Workforce Tracking Collaborative, which assesses efforts to meet health care workforce challenges such as mal-distribution, shortages and language access. For five years, she directed the California Workforce Initiative, a comprehensive program to conduct research and develop policy regarding the education, regulation and management of California's health care professionals.As staff to the Pew Health Professions Commission, she co-directed the Commission's national Taskforce on Health Care Workforce Regulation and was a principal author of the Commission's reports on health professions regulation.She has also directed Center studies on community health workers, emerging professions in complementary and alternative health care, the taskforce on midwifery and a research project to review the impact of affirmative action efforts on health status.Catherine's published work targets health professions regulation and women's health, and as an active member of the Center's speakers' bureau, she addresses health care educators, professionals, regulators and legislators across the country.

Audio recordings and PowerPoint presentations are available for $45.00 for CAC members and $65.00 for non-members. Please contact us for more information. If you're not sure if your organization is a CAC member, please click here.