간호업무 관련 법령의 정합성 연구: 간호사, 조산사, 전문간호사, 간호조무사를 중심으로

Abstract

Related to nursing services, the Medical Services Act was amended in December 2015 and the grounds of advanced practice nurse’s qualification was ruled in the law in March 2018. Although legislations related to nursing services have been modified constantly, there remain problems of nursing staffs those are not covered enough by current legislations. The purpose of this study was to review nursing services laws and regulations, especially for nurse, midwife, advanced practice nurse and nurse assistant and to examine legal coherence among them. There are 14 acts that have provisions related to nursing services. In terms of completeness there is no regulation about nursing services of advanced practice nurse. With respect to consistency there is contradiction among legislations provisions in the Medical Service Act and those in other health laws regulating nursing services. Based on analysis of horizontal coherence, confusion may occur because legislations exist sporadically which causes different interpretation. Vertical coherence analysis shows absence of some lower statutes in spite of the delegation. This study suggests two ways to enhance coherence. One is to maintain current legislations while amending the provision preventing them coherent. The other is to enact the unified Nurse Act. This study is meaningful as there is only few preceding research on legal coherence in health system.