It would certainly improve efficiency. As a State Dept of Health official I could access info on facilities throughout the state, but if I had to research a potential owner or administrator from a different state, I would have to pick up the phone and speak to someone in another state's government who was willing to check their state's databases while I waited, and read me the info. Very time consuming.

ABSOLUTELY!  As we have ONE passport, we should have ONE license.  The state-to-state system is a holdover from the last century when nobody ever left their home county.  Now, nurses move around, go in to assist with disaster relief, etc.  Such a move could MAYBE also bring up the substandard states and provide more protection from vicious nonsense on the job.

Ha! Our state Board of Nursing is simply a bunch of Political appointees, serving on a volunteer basis. Entrenched??? Oh, you bet!

I was a professional State attorney - dealing with the Board was ridiculous. The only reasonable people there were the secretaries and the Deputy Attorney General assigned to them.

Part of it is not their fault - they are part-time appointees.

The problem will be to get State legislatures to agree to national licensure - they will be lobbied by local interests.

Enforcement should not be a problem if you get the various states to agree on licensing regs..

Fort example, I was Chief of Enforcement for Health Facilkities Regulation for theState of New Jersey - but my salary was paid by the Federal government...  because most of what we enforced was Federal Medicare and Medicaid regultations. The feds pay the states to do their enforcement.

Once national licensing regs are passed, it is a simple matter to contract each state to enforce them. Plus it will simplify matters for nurse who move or wish to practicew in more thsan one satate,

After the NCLEX you would only need the background check - one with the FBI and one with the State Police.

But we are forgetting one thing - Boards of Nursing are usually political appointees, not professional government employees - they have a territory to protect, and will lobby fiercely to keep from national regulation, which will remove their power and prestige, and eventually cause them to go out of existence. Of course my opinion is YAYYYY! The sooner the better!

hate to be the sceptic here but this will NEVER happen and here's why......the money that each state collects when you pay every 2 years goes to the state and as the captain said this will not be given up without a fight.  esp in california where we are in such bad shape our BON would never consent to giving up their $$$ .  that is just my feeling on this.  i am sure that the lawyers could probably figure out a way to fix this but we would probably end up paying both the state and the feds to keep our lic active.  this dilemma is no different than what many professionals face and with the bad shape our state and fed gov is in any loss of revenue is going to be viewed with a hairy eyeball! not that i don't agree with you all but don't think its going to happen any time soon.  too much money and power and jobs involved.

 I'm a travel nurse who will be settling down soon, at least for a while, and guess what? I'm focusing my job search so that I can settle down in a COMPACT state. That way, I can work in 19 other states that are also a part of this accord, as long as I maintain that home base.

The states are already losing money because of this accord of states. I'm sure they fought this, but it is in the interest of the hospitals and their patients to make it easier for nurses to work in various states, so ultimately they lost. I think this will eventually expand to cover all the states, and at THAT point, federal licensure will will gain foothold.

There's a shortage of heath care professionals out there, and as the Baby Boomers get older, it only gets worse. This would be one tool to fight this shortage, because it would be easier for people to move to where the jobs are.