South Dakota’s Board of Nursing sets out its expectations for RN moderate sedation in a four-page practice statement. It begins from the statute — administering moderate sedation medications and managing the care of those patients is “within the scope of a registered nurse pursuant to SDCL 36-9-3” (p. 1). Everything below is quoted or paraphrased from that PDF, with page numbers.
South Dakota at a glance
| Board | South Dakota Board of Nursing |
| Document | Role of the Registered Nurse in the Management of Patients Receiving Moderate Sedation — Board practice statement, 4-page PDF; page numbers here refer to it. The PDF carries no document-type label of its own; “Practice Statement” heads its first section (p. 1). |
| Rule it applies | Rests on SDCL 36-9-3, cites SDCL 36-9-1.1 as the Board’s authority and quotes Declaratory Ruling 89-1 (p. 1). Its list of applicable laws and rules names SDCL 36-9-3 and ARSD 20:48:04:01.01 (p. 4). |
| Status | Advisory, in the Board’s own words: “The opinions do not have the force and effect of law but serve as guidelines to licensees to engage in safe nursing practice” (p. 1). Every obligation in the Guidelines is a “should”; the document’s two “must” sentences are both in the opening Practice Statement. |
| Dates | “Approval Date: April 2003; Revised: November 2018” with “Editorial Revision: January 2024, November 2024” (p. 1). No review cycle or expiry is stated. |
| Who it covers | The registered nurse who administers moderate sedation/analgesia medications and manages those patients’ care (p. 1); for the education and policy items, “The healthcare facility” and the employer (pp. 2–3). |
| Who it does not cover | Not stated — the document names no excluded license type, setting or patient population. It does not address the licensed practical nurse, the advanced practice registered nurse or the CRNA as roles anywhere in its four pages (its only mention of nurse anesthetists is a bibliography entry, p. 4). Read no permission and no prohibition into that silence. |
| Settings the document names | None — no hospital, surgery center, clinic or office appears in the four pages; the document speaks of “The healthcare facility” (p. 2) and asks that emergency equipment and supplemental oxygen be “accessible in every location where moderate sedation/analgesia is administered” (p. 3). |
| Re-verification interval | None stated. Competence is evaluated “on a periodic basis” (p. 2) — no number of months or years, and no tie to renewal or expiry. |
| Where the record lives | The competence evaluation is “maintained on file with the employer” (p. 2); patient-side records follow the facility — “Documentation should be completed according to institutional guidelines” (p. 3). |
| CE hours | Not stated — no contact-hour count, and nothing tied to license renewal. The only certification the Guidelines name is advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation “specific to the age of population served, such as Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) or Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS)” (p. 3) — an example, not a closed list. |
What the South Dakota Board of Nursing says
Both Guidelines are framed as things the healthcare facility “should have in place”. Guideline A asks for an educational mechanism, and says “Nursing course instruction should include” ten topics (p. 2): indications and contraindications; levels of sedation/analgesia; monitoring using “a valid sedation scale”; anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, arrhythmia recognition and drug complications; care before and during administration “including the recovery phase”; oxygen delivery, respiratory physiology and, “if available”, capnography; complications “for each type of agent being administered”, and reversal agents; intervening “according to medical orders or facility protocols”; recovery assessment before discharge; and patient and family education.
Guideline B asks for “written policy and procedures on moderate sedation/analgesia that reflect nationally accepted standards and professional nursing practice”, then lists twelve items covering emergency protocols and equipment, a credentialed professional “capable of managing complications during the post-procedure period”, resuscitation certification, pre-sedation assessment and provider ordering, monitoring, pre-discharge assessment, documentation and discharge (p. 3).
Two items are easy to restate too strictly. Item B.7 has a release clause: the nurse “should not have any other responsibilities during the procedure until the patient’s level of sedation/analgesia and vital signs are stable”, but “once stable, the registered nurse may assist with minor, interruptible tasks provided adequate monitoring for the patient’s level of sedation is maintained” (p. 3). Items B.8 and B.9 use two different words: “Continual monitoring (e.g. every 5 minutes)” of ventilatory functions and hemodynamics, “Continuous monitoring (e.g. without interruption at any time)” of oxygen saturation/oximetry (p. 3).
Because “Sedation occurs on a continuum; moderate sedation may progress to deep sedation”, registered nurses who administer medications for moderate sedation/analgesia “must be qualified to provide rescue support to patients who proceed to a deeper level of sedation”, and “Rescuing a patient requires the registered nurse to be proficient in assisting with airway management and advanced life support” (p. 1). The Guidelines close: “The registered nurse has the right and obligation to refuse to administer or continue to administer medication(s) in amounts or frequency that may induce deep sedation or anesthesia” (p. 3).
The sentence that matters most for a competency file:
“The healthcare facility should have in place an educational mechanism which includes a process for nursing management to evaluate and document a registered nurse’s competence that occurs on a periodic basis and is maintained on file with the employer.”
South Dakota Board of Nursing — practice statement, p. 2
What a South Dakota facility should be able to show
Guidelines A and B translate into three records:
- The facility-level documents — the written moderate sedation policy covering Guideline B’s twelve items (p. 3), plus the educational mechanism Guideline A describes (p. 2).
- Per-nurse evidence of sedation instruction — Guideline A lists the ten topics that instruction should include (p. 2), so the file should show what each RN administering or monitoring moderate sedation was taught.
- A dated competence record for each of those nurses — nursing management evaluates and documents competence “on a periodic basis”, the result “maintained on file with the employer” (p. 2), on an interval the Board does not name.
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 South Dakota facilities ask
How often does the South Dakota Board want sedation competence re-checked?
The document does not say. It asks for an evaluation “that occurs on a periodic basis” (p. 2) — no month or year count, and no tie to license renewal. The interval is your own policy’s, together with whatever your facility’s licensing regulator or accreditor requires — outside this Board document and outside this page.
Does the South Dakota Board require the CSRN™ course?
No — the Guidelines call for no particular course, and no state mandates this specific one. What it asks for is the instruction content and a documented, periodic competence evaluation on file with the employer (p. 2), in a form it leaves open. Its reference list cites three professional documents (p. 4), one of them the American Association of Moderate Sedation Nurses’ “Certified sedation registered nurse scope of practice”, the scope-of-practice document behind the CSRN credential — a bibliography entry, not an approval or a requirement.
Does this statement let a South Dakota RN give a medication to induce general anesthesia?
No — not as a registered nurse, and not for that purpose. The Board quotes Declaratory Ruling 89-1: registered nurses “may not administer any medication for the purpose of inducing general anesthesia”, while the same passage confirms they may administer “narcotics, analgesics, sedatives, and tranquilizing medications” (p. 1). Read it as narrowly as the document draws it: the statement addresses the registered nurse who administers moderate sedation, it does not address the advanced practice registered nurse or the CRNA as roles, and nothing here describes anesthesia practice carried out under separate advanced practice authority. Determining what purpose a multi-use drug is being given for is “not within the authority of the board” — “Institutional or agency protocol must address this” (p. 1). The document does not say what force the Ruling itself carries.
Compliance note (last reviewed September 2026): This page is educational information about the South Dakota Board of Nursing practice statement Role of the Registered Nurse in the Management of Patients Receiving Moderate Sedation, not legal advice or a compliance determination. Every quotation was checked word-for-word against the Board’s PDF of that statement on 2026-09-02; page numbers refer to that four-page document, which carries an approval date of April 2003, a November 2018 revision and editorial revisions in January and November 2024. The document states no review cycle for itself; confirm the current version and your own facility policy before relying on this summary. No state mandates this specific course.