In the United States, many states have revised their nurse practice acts to include provisions that promote full practice authority for nurse practitioners. Such revisions reflect the expanded qualifications and abilities of nurse practitioners and provide a mechanism by which to better utilize the full scope of nurse practitioner services that are available to address growing demands for access to health care. Although the research literature is beginning to describe strategies that states have used to successfully achieve regulatory changes to full practice authority for nurse practitioners, no published study identified in the literature has explored how stakeholders within a state decide on the appropriate time to pursue such legislation. This is the first known study to use an embedded single case study design, guided by the Kingdon (2011) policy stream model, to provide a detailed account of how stakeholders for nurse practitioner full practice authority in one stated determined the appropriate time to pursue legislative changes to nurse practitioner scope of practice regulations. Qualitative data analysis was guided by Yin (2014), and used theoretical propositions, the development of a case description, pattern matching, and explanation building. Findings from the study addressed the research question by revealing four themes which included the components considered by the study state’s stakeholders as they determined the appropriate time to pursue legislation to change nurse practitioner scope of practice regulations. Study findings can be used as a reference to increase the competency with which the nursing profession pursues the policy process for full practice authority legislation, and can be used by stakeholders in other states as a guide for the assessment components to consider when making decisions to pursue related legislation
