The Nevada State Board of Nursing addresses RN moderate sedation in a four-page Practice Decision. It places the task inside RN scope and attaches seven conditions to it: “It is within the scope of practice of the RN to administer medications for the purpose of induction of moderate/procedural sedation for short term, diagnostic or surgical procedures provided the following criteria are met” (p. 1). Everything below is quoted or paraphrased from it, with page numbers.
Nevada at a glance
| Board | Nevada State Board of Nursing (NSBN) |
| Document | Practice Decision, The Role of the RN in Moderate/Procedural Sedation — 4-page PDF at an April 2026 upload path on the Board’s site (checked 2026-09-02) |
| Rule it applies | Not a regulation itself, and it reproduces none of the four provisions it names: “In compliance with NAC 632.225”; “The medical facility as defined in NRS 449.0151”; and, for outpatient care, NAC 449.999417 and NAC 449.99942 (all p. 1). Nothing here claims what any of them requires. |
| Status | A Board practice decision. The four pages nowhere state whether the decision itself carries the force of law, and do not call it advisory either — the only occurrences of “Advisory” are a committee name and a reference title (p. 4). Its verbs are mandatory: “shall” nine times, “must” three, against one “should”, governing the facility’s written policies (p. 1). |
| Dates | First approved 3/16/05, then in 2007, 2011 and 2018; most recently reviewed 2/03/2026 and “Approved by the Board: 03/12/26” (p. 4). No effective date, review cycle or expiry date is stated. |
| Who it covers | “The RN managing the care of the patient receiving moderate or procedural sedation” (p. 2), and the RN who administers the medications under the seven criteria (p. 1). |
| Who it does not cover | Licensed practical nurses are not mentioned in the four pages, in either direction. It draws two exclusions of its own: deep sedation is “not within the scope of an RN who is not a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA)” (p. 3), and complex nursing functions, “including vital signs, shall not be assigned to unlicensed assistive personnel” (p. 2). |
| Settings the document names | No specific care setting is named in the four pages. It names broad categories instead: the practitioner “present at the bedside”; “an appropriate setting to the practice determined by the facility that employs the RN”; the “medical facility” and “outpatient facility” of the provisions above (all p. 1); and “The institution” that documents competency (p. 2). |
| Re-verification interval | Annual — “Evaluation and documentation of competency shall occur on an annual basis” (p. 2). |
| Where the record lives | With the employer. Mandatory: “The institution shall have in place a process for evaluating and documenting” the RN’s demonstration of knowledge, skills and abilities (p. 2). Advised, not commanded: the medical facility “should have written policies” whose listed contents end with “documentation” (p. 1) — the document’s only “should”. Its own word is documentation; record does not appear in the four pages. |
| CE hours | Not stated — no contact-hour count, continuing-education condition or licence-renewal wording appears in the four pages. It names ACLS, PALS and NRP, the last of the three left to the employer: “Neonatal Resuscitation (NRP) may be required per facility (for the neonatal patient)” (p. 1). |
What the Nevada State Board of Nursing says
The seven criteria on p. 1 are the operative part of the decision:
- A “qualified legally authorized practitioner credentialed in emergency airway management and cardiovascular support” selects and orders the medications.
- That practitioner “is present at the bedside but is unable to personally administer the medication because the practitioner is performing other critical tasks for that patient”.
- Policies “that include direction for patient monitoring, drug administration and protocols for dealing with potential complications or emergency situations” are available and “developed in accordance with nationally accepted standards of practice”.
- The RN managing the patient’s care “shall have no other responsibilities that would leave the patient unattended or compromise continuous monitoring”.
- “The RN has completed ACLS and PALS. Neonatal Resuscitation (NRP) may be required per facility (for the neonatal patient). RNs not trained in NRP are not permitted to provide sedation of any kind to the neonate.” Neither ACLS nor PALS carries an age qualifier.
- “The RN has demonstrated current competencies regarding the administration and monitoring of moderate/procedural sedation. In compliance with NAC 632.225.”
- IV anesthetic agents may be given for moderate/procedural sedation “in an appropriate setting to the practice determined by the facility that employs the RN”, and the medical facility “should have written policies regarding the location of where sedation may occur, the training and qualifications of personnel, monitoring equipment, pharmacological guidelines, patient recovery, quality assurance and documentation”. The definitions section bounds those agents by purpose: they “are not to be administered to provide anesthesia” (p. 3).
COMPETENCIES then says what “competent” means: a knowledge base that “includes but is not limited to” the medication’s effects, side effects, contraindications and dose, and the skills to administer it and reversal medications safely and to recognise and act on complications and emergency situations (paraphrased, p. 2). SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS adds continuous monitoring of “oxygen saturation, cardiac rate and rhythm, blood pressure, respiratory rate and level of consciousness”, with immediate, on-site back-up personnel and emergency equipment (paraphrased, p. 2). The paragraph that closes COMPETENCIES:
“The institution shall have in place a process for evaluating and documenting the RN’s demonstration of the knowledge, skills and abilities for the management of patients receiving agents to render procedural sedation. Evaluation and documentation of competency shall occur on an annual basis.”
Nevada State Board of Nursing — Practice Decision, The Role of the RN in Moderate/Procedural Sedation, p. 2
What a Nevada facility should be able to show
Criterion 5 asks for completed ACLS and PALS, and NRP where your facility requires it (p. 1). Beyond those, the decision points at three things a surveyor or credentialing review can ask for:
- Written sedation policies covering criterion 3’s monitoring, drug administration and emergency protocols and criterion 7’s policy list (p. 1). For outpatient care it adds that patients receiving moderate/procedural sedation in an outpatient facility “must comply with the provisions of this regulation” (p. 1).
- Per-nurse evidence of demonstrated current competency in the administration and monitoring of moderate/procedural sedation (p. 1), covering the knowledge and the skills the COMPETENCIES section lists (p. 2).
- Dated per-nurse evidence that the evaluation has been repeated within the year — the decision’s own interval is “on an annual basis”, and the process behind it is the institution’s to run, not the individual nurse’s (p. 2).
The CSRN™ course — 10 CE contact hours developed and delivered by Capt. M. Ron Eslinger, CRNA, with module exams, case studies and a certificate ID your credentialing office can verify — is built to be records 2 and 3 on that list. Facility seats and roster tracking →
Questions Nevada facilities ask
Does Nevada set an interval for sedation competency?
Yes: “Evaluation and documentation of competency shall occur on an annual basis” (p. 2). The employer runs it: the institution “shall have in place a process for evaluating and documenting” the RN’s demonstration (p. 2), so the annual competency documentation is the institution’s to hold, not the individual nurse’s. Nothing is tied to licence renewal.
Does the practice decision require the CSRN™ course?
No. It requires no particular sedation course — the courses it does name are ACLS and PALS (p. 1), plus NRP where the facility requires it. Criterion 6 asks only for demonstrated “current competencies regarding the administration and monitoring of moderate/procedural sedation” (p. 1); what that evidence must look like is left to the institution’s own process (p. 2). No state mandates this specific course. CSRN™ is designed to serve as it: assessed competency and a dated, employer-verifiable certificate ID.
Can a Nevada RN administer deep sedation?
Not under this decision. Its definitions section says “It is not within the scope of an RN who is not a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) to provide deep sedation” (p. 3), and it gives the RN a stated right to refuse medications in “amounts/frequency that may produce sedation at a deeper level than desired” (p. 2).
Compliance note (last reviewed September 2026): This page is educational information about the Nevada State Board of Nursing Practice Decision The Role of the RN in Moderate/Procedural Sedation, not legal advice or a compliance determination. Every quotation was checked word-for-word on 2026-09-02 against the four-page PDF linked from the Board’s own practice-decisions index — the April 2026 upload, “Approved by the Board: 03/12/26” (p. 4); page numbers refer to that PDF. An earlier 2018 edition of the same decision is still reachable at an older upload path on the Board’s site and differs materially, so check the file the Board’s index links, together with your own facility policy, before relying on this summary. No state mandates this specific course.