Proposed legislation soon might provide patients with an alternative to seeing doctors to get prescriptions filled.

The bill, to be introduced to the Ohio General Assembly by Rep. Nancy Hollister, R-Marietta, and Sen. Merle Grace Kearns, R-Springfield, would grant limited prescriptive privileges to some registered nurses, known as advanced practice nurses, who have advanced training in specialized areas.

These nurses must be certified as nurse-midwives, clinical nurse specialists or nurse practitioners, said Sue Milne, advanced practice consultant for the Ohio Board of Nursing.

She said advanced practice nurses often spend more time with patients than doctors can, so allowing them to make prescriptions would let nurses and doctors to use their time more efficiently.

To qualify for prescriptive privileges, nurses would have to take advanced courses in pharmacology and have master's degrees in nursing. They would be able to prescribe drugs approved by a committee of nurses, physicians and pharmacists, with the collaboration of supervising doctors.

According to the American Nurses Association, about 140,000 advanced practice nurses practice nationwide. Milne said of the 5,000 in Ohio, she expects about half to qualify for prescriptive privileges.

Milne said about 90 advanced practice nurses have prescriptive privileges under a 1992 pilot program established through the nursing schools at Case Western Reserve University, Wright State University and the University of Cincinnati.

Ohio is the only state not allowing prescriptive privileges to advanced practice nurses, said Melissa Harwood, Kearns' legislative aide.

Carol Jenkins, executive director of the Ohio Nurses Association, said the bill would improve primary care in urban and rural areas that have a difficult time attracting doctors.

But others have expressed concern that nurses might not have the expertise to prescribe drugs. In 1996, the American Medial Association Board of Trustees passed a resolution recommending that "exercising independent medical judgment to select the drug of choice must continue to be the responsibility of physicians."