“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Helen Keller

As you know, nursing homes provide housing and healthcare to Californians in need of this level of care for both the short and long term. The Medical Director is responsible for medical care¹ while the Director of Nursing is responsible for nursing services.² Both collaborate with the members of the interprofessional team. 

Improved collaboration and partnership of the Medical Director and Director of Nursing in California nursing homes is in their mutual professional self-interest and a means of advancing quality services for nursing home residents. One concrete way to achieve this is for Directors of Nursing to educate themselves about AB 749, which was passed into law in 2021. It required all nursing home medical directors in California to be certified by the American Board of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.¹

Directors of Nursing can educate their employers, including administrators, about the requirements of AB 749 and the benefits derived by having a certified Medical Director. Certification increases the likelihood that a Medical Director will be competent and engaged in the clinical and organizational life of the nursing home. It may increase the likelihood that the Director of Nursing may experience the aspirations of Article² Scope of Regulation (2715) of the California Nursing Practice Act. “It is the legislative intent also to recognize the existence of overlapping functions between physicians and registered nurses and to permit additional sharing of functions within organized health care systems that provide for collaboration between physicians and registered nurses.”

My hope is that Directors of Nursing will actively advocate for and support the implementation of AB 749 to advance nursing home quality in California.

1. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB749
2. 2  22CCR § 72327. Nursing Service-Director of Nursing Service.