Written Protocol · RN
Rhode Island Physician'S Standing Orders for Registered Nurses
Recognized but not required in every case. The Physician'S Standing Orders is the written instrument Rhode Island law names for a Registered Nurse working with a physician. Below: the board that governs it, what it contains when one is used, and the supervision rules that apply either way.
General RN licensure (R.I. Gen. Laws Ch. 5-34) is not subject to physician supervision or a collaborative agreement — RNs practice within physician orders, standing orders, and facility protocols, categorically distinct from an APRN's independent-practitioner status or a PA's collaboration requirement.
What a voluntary Registered Nurse agreement covers in Rhode Island
Rhode Island requires no written agreement for registered nurses. These are the clauses a practice includes when it chooses to put one in writing. The Rhode Island Board of Nursing governs registered nurses here.
In a nursing facility, Registered Nurse may carry out resident influenza, pneumococcal and other adult vaccinations under facility vaccination policies and protocols, such as standing orders of a physician; other standing orders are not permitted in nursing facilities.
- The Physician'S Standing Orders also carries 1 scope clauses, authored in the document itself.
Statutes and rules these clauses cite
- 216-RICR-40-10-1 (Licensing of Nursing Facilities)regulation
Defines standing orders; requires nursing facilities to develop and implement influenza, pneumococcal and other adult vaccination policies and protocols (such as physician's standing orders); otherwise provides that standing orders shall not be permitted.
What Rhode Island does require
The supervision and prescribing rules that apply to registered nurses regardless of any agreement.
Proximity
Not codified
Supervision ratio
Not codified — no cap on file
Chart review
Not codified
Meeting cadence
Not codified
Prescriptive authority
No agreement needed to prescribe · no controlled-substance authority
RNs do not have independent prescriptive authority in RI; they administer medications per physician/APRN orders.
Written agreement
Not required
Unconditional — general RN licensure is never subject to physician supervision or a collaborative agreement in RI.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Licensee-only ownership required — Professional Service Corporation under R.I. Gen. Laws § 7-5.1-1 et seq. — RNs are explicitly listed among eligible healing-arts licensees. Non-clinical businesses an RN might own fall outside this regime entirely.
Sources for the supervision rules (2)
- R.I. Gen. Laws Ch. 5-34 — Nursessecondary
- R.I. Gen. Laws § 7-5.1-1 et seq. — Professional Service Corporations
About Rhode Island's rules
RI is a Full Practice Authority state for NP/CNM (R.I. Gen. Laws § 5-34-44) and, since a 2019 reform (§ 5-54-8), no longer requires PAs to have a written practice agreement — 'collaboration' with an always-accessible physician replaced supervision and hospital ratio caps. CRNAs are the exception: RI has NOT taken the Medicare physician-supervision opt-out, and CRNA scope is statutorily bounded to the perioperative period.
Other clinicians in Rhode Island: see the state overview.