The Utah Board of Nursing publishes no sedation document — no position statement, no advisory opinion, no declaratory ruling — and that absence is the finding. What it publishes on scope is a single page whose first move is to decline the question: the pace of practice makes it “impossible for the Board or DOPL to delineate, describe, or list individual tasks which may be associated with nursing practice” (p. 1). Utah does have a binding sedation statute, but it is not the Board’s, and its requirements are addressed to a defined class of providers that does not include the registered nurse.
Utah at a glance
| Board | “the Utah Board of Nursing” (p. 1), named alongside “The Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL)” (p. 1); the statement does not say how the two relate. |
| Document | Nursing Scope of Practice Statement — one page, PDF; every (p. 1) refers to it. Not a sedation document: the words sedation, anesthesia and analgesia do not appear in it. |
| Rule it applies | None by number — it cites no section at all, naming the Nurse Practice Act (Utah Code Title 58, Chapter 31b) and its Rule (Utah Admin. Code R156-31b) in words alone. |
| Status | Neither a rule nor a position statement — a disclaimer and a pointer: the Board “does not provide legal advice for nurses” (p. 1); scope is “defined by the Utah State Legislature” (p. 1). No shall in it; must once, in the sentence quoted below. |
| Dates | “Accepted by the Nursing Board on May 14, 2015” (p. 1) — the only date it carries; no revision, review or expiry date, no review cycle. |
| Who it covers | “licensed nursing professionals in Utah” (p. 1); “Each licensed nurse is responsible and accountable for his or her own nursing practice.” (p. 1) |
| Who it does not cover | Not stated. It draws no line between license levels and attaches no exclusion to anyone, leaving the levels to the Act (p. 1). |
| Settings the document names | None — the only place of work it names is the employer: “policies of the employing organization” (p. 1). |
| Re-verification interval | Not stated. The nearest thing is an expectation with no clock on it: the nurse is expected to “remain current” (p. 1). |
| Where the record lives | Not stated — no file, no custodian, no retention period. The record duty in § 58-1-510 is the provider’s, not the nurse’s: chart entries at (2)(j). What a facility’s own licensing regulator requires in the chart is a separate question this row does not reach. |
| CE hours | Not stated — no contact-hour count, no mention of continuing education. Renewal CE sits in the Rule instead, at R156-31b-303(3)(a), none of it sedation-specific. |
What the Utah Board of Nursing says
It puts the judgment on the individual — “Each licensed nurse is responsible and accountable for his or her own nursing practice.” (p. 1) — then names, in its one must sentence, what that care has to be consistent with, one of the three being the employer’s own policy:
“The nurse must provide nursing care that is consistent with his/her education and training, policies of the employing organization, and existing statutes and rules.”
Utah Board of Nursing / Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing — Nursing Scope of Practice Statement, accepted May 14, 2015 (p. 1)
The rest is referral: each nurse is “encouraged to read the Nurse Practice Act on a regular basis” (p. 1), and the Rule gets the same encouragement.
Where Utah’s sedation requirements actually sit
Search for Utah’s sedation law and you get Utah Code § 58-1-510, headed Anesthesia and sedation requirements — Unprofessional conduct — Whistleblower protection — a real, binding statute, but one in Title 58, Chapter 1: division-wide, not a Board of Nursing document. Its defined term anesthesia or sedation provider, at (1)(a), covers podiatric physicians, physicians, osteopathic physicians, permitted dentists and, among nurses, only the § 58-31b-301(2)(b) advanced practice registered nurse certified as a registered nurse anesthetist with prescriptive authority. The registered nurse is a separate classification in that same list, § 58-31b-301(2)(g), and the definition does not include it; the duties at § 58-1-510(2) are that provider’s.
Two things reach past that class. Subsection (3)(b) is written in terms of an individual rather than the defined provider: it makes it unprofessional conduct for an individual to administer anesthesia or sedation for which the individual is not appropriately trained, and does not define appropriately trained. And two of the (2) duties — at (2)(g)(i) an individual in the procedure room with advanced airway training, at (2)(j)(v) the named monitor of oxygenation and ventilation — assume a second clinician whose license the statute never specifies. Where an RN fills either role, the duty is still the provider’s, and no Utah nursing instrument sets a training standard for the role.
The Rule adds nothing sedation-specific for the RN: R156-31b-703b(4), the only place in the chapter where sedation appears, is addressed to the certified registered nurse anesthetist licensed under § 58-31b-301(2).
What a Utah facility should be able to show
Because the Board sets no sedation standard, you are measured against your own policy plus whatever your facility’s licensing regulator requires — and the statement itself makes “policies of the employing organization” (p. 1) part of it. Three records carry it:
- Your own moderate-sedation policy, dated and approved — who may administer, under whose order, what is monitored and charted, and how competency is validated. Neither the statement nor the Rule supplies that content; under R156-31b-703b(2)(n) an RN acting as chief administrative nurse is only to see that policies, procedures and standards of nursing practice are developed, kept current and implemented, and to assess nursing staff’s knowledge, skills and abilities.
- Per-nurse evidence of initial education and training for every RN who administers or monitors moderate sedation — the “education and training” (p. 1) the nurse’s care has to be consistent with, and your answer if § 58-1-510(3)(b) is ever put to her.
- Per-nurse evidence of ongoing competence, on an interval your own policy names — the statement sets none, asking only that the nurse “remain current” (p. 1).
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 Utah facilities ask
Does the Utah Board of Nursing publish a sedation position statement?
No — checked, not assumed. The Board’s Resources page lists exactly one scope document, this statement, and no sedation or anesthesia item at all; its pain-related items are opioid-prescribing documents. The Laws and Rules page lists statutes and rules only. Both inventories come from Internet Archive snapshots dated in the compliance note below. So the Board publishes no sedation guidance; this page makes no claim about what other Utah agencies publish.
Does Utah Code § 58-1-510 apply to an RN who monitors moderate sedation?
Not as the anesthesia or sedation provider whose duties it sets out: that definition at (1)(a) admits the APRN-CRNA, not the RN. So its ACLS, PALS, capnography and crash-cart requirements are the provider’s, not your nursing staff’s. Note too that § 58-1-510 reaches deep sedation and general anesthesia, which our course does not address.
Does Utah require the CSRN™ course specifically?
No. Neither the statement nor anything sedation-specific in the Nurse Practice Act Rule requires a course of an RN who administers or monitors moderate sedation; the statement requires no course of anyone, and no state mandates this specific one. What it names instead is general: care consistent with the nurse’s “education and training” (p. 1), by a nurse expected to “remain current” (p. 1). CSRN™ is designed to serve as that documented education for moderate sedation, with the hands-on sign-off remaining yours to make.
Compliance note (last reviewed September 2026): This page is educational information about the Utah Board of Nursing’s Nursing Scope of Practice Statement, not legal advice or a compliance determination. Every quotation was checked word-for-word on 2026-09-02 against that one-page PDF; page numbers refer to it. The live host answered automated requests with a Cloudflare challenge that day, so the file was re-verified against the Internet Archive’s copy of 14 March 2025, which is identical to it; the page inventories above come from Archive snapshots of the Resources page (18 June 2025) and Laws and Rules page (7 September 2025). The Utah Code text was re-fetched from le.utah.gov the same day and matched exactly; the R156-31b rule text could not be re-fetched and rests on the extract banked for this review. Numbering moves, and the Rule’s own cross-references are already out of date, so confirm the current text and your own facility policy before relying on this summary. No state mandates this specific course.