Hospitals, anesthesiologists and CRNA groups back House Bill 52 to modernize Ohio CRNA statutes

Columbus — Hospital leaders, anesthesiologists and representatives of the Ohio State Association of Nurse Anesthetists urged the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday to approve substitute House Bill 52, calling the proposal a necessary modernization of Ohio law that clarifies CRNA roles and hospital privileging without expanding clinical scope.

"Substitute House Bill 52 is a thoughtful modernization of CRNA statutes," Angie Milosz, director of an Ohio nurse anesthesia program and a CRNA, told Chairman Huffman and the committee. Milosz described doctoral‑level CRNA programs, national certification, and facility‑based privileging processes and said the bill "aligns the statutory scope of practice with the education and national board certification that CRNAs already meet."

Why it matters: Testimony stressed the bill does not widen what CRNAs may do clinically but consolidates fragmented code sections and clarifies that CRNA activities require education, facility credentialing and a collaborative relationship with physicians, dentists or podiatrists. Supporters said the change would reduce legal uncertainty and administrative inefficiency that can hamper care delivery, especially in rural hospitals.

Supporters’ main points and examples

- Education and certification: Milosz and other witnesses described CRNA training as a competitive process requiring prior critical‑care nursing experience and completion of an accredited doctoral program, followed by national board certification and ongoing re‑certification.

- Operational clarity and local privileging: Sonia Selhorst, president of Mercy Health Defiance Hospital (Bon Secours Mercy Health), said Ohio’s current statutes are spread across multiple code sections and sometimes force facilities to interpret inconsistent rules. She described cases where the same clinical action—ordering preoperative fluids or a post‑procedure chest x‑ray—was permitted in one department but not another under current interpretations. HB 52, she said, would consolidate CRNA scope into a single code section while preserving facility credentialing and privileging processes.

- Team‑based care and workforce: Physician anesthesiologists and hospital system leaders said the legislation would reflect modern team models used across Ohio and help address workforce pressures by removing ambiguous statutory language. Gerald Zeligowski, chief of anesthesia at the Institute for Orthopedic Surgery in Lima, said the bill "strikes the right balance" by clarifying roles without mandating a single delivery model.

Committee questions and clarifications

- Committee members asked whether HB 52 would expand CRNA practice or change supervision requirements. Witnesses uniformly said the bill does not expand scope of practice; rather, it replaces unclear supervision terms with language describing collaboration and preserves physician leadership in care decisions.

- Senators asked about the meaning of "clinical support functions." Milosz and other witnesses said the bill keeps three safeguards: the activity must be within a CRNA’s education and training, the facility must credential and privilege the individual for that activity, and a physician must request or authorize the function in the patient’s care plan. Examples discussed included intubation and regional nerve blocks, procedures CRNAs already perform in many Ohio hospitals under facility privileging.

- Hospital and system witnesses stressed rural impacts. Kettering Health and Mercy Health representatives said CRNAs are often the primary anesthesia providers in rural hospitals and that clear statutes would reduce administrative friction when deploying anesthesia teams.

No formal vote was taken at the hearing. Supporters asked the committee to adopt the substitute bill, saying it would preserve patient safety, respect existing privileging and credentialing processes, and reduce legal uncertainty that now burdens hospitals and clinicians.