Compact License Update: Kansas Makes Progress; Low Demand for Wyoming Licenses
The Kansas legislature has moved quickly on HB 2496 in the past two weeks, meaning Kansas could join the 29 other states in the enhanced Nursing Licensure Compact as early as next year. The bill was introduced to the House on Jan. 17 and promptly moved to the Committee on Health and Human Services the next day. After a small amendment bumping up the implementation date, the bill passed the House with almost unanimous support last Thursday. The Senate pushed the bill to the Committee on Public Health and Welfare this week, and legislators will resume session after the weekend. If the bill passes, Kansas nurses could potentially obtain new compact nursing licenses by January 1, 2019, according to the bill supplement. Kansas is one of seven states attempting to pass legislation to join the eNLC, which went into effect on Jan. 19 this year. The other states are Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont. Wyoming: Low demand makes for easy eNLC transition Wyoming’s had an easier time addressing multi-state license demand compared to the others as one of the five new states to join the compact, Jennifer Burns, practice and education consultant for the Wyoming State Board of Nursing, said there have been less than 100 applications for new compact nursing licenses or upgrades from normal licenses. There are approximately 13,000 registered nurses and 1,100 licensed professional nurses in the state as of December 2017. “We’re a small state in number of licensees,” Burns said. “We’re not seeing any delays in processing applications. We were well prepared. To be honest, most of our home-state nurses like to live in the communities where they work.” Despite the low numbers, Burns said the state still sees traffic from travelers on a fairly consistent basis. Wyoming jumped significantly in the rankings for most applications submitted from travelers by state for February, moving from the 45th most popular state to the 37th, according to StaffDNA data. “I don’t know if there will be an increase in opportunity for travel nurses, but it will certainly decrease the time it takes for travelers (with compact nursing licenses) to come here,” Burns said. “A lot of travelers come to our state, so there’s the benefit of that for us being a part of the eNLC.”