Skip to main content

     MANUSCRIPTS and ARCHIVAL MATERIAL

New York State Coalition of Nurse Practitioners Collection

 Collection
Identifier: 2022-001

Scope and Contents

The collection comprises materials related to the formation and operation of the New York State Coalition of Nurse Practitioners, Inc., and, more generally, to the efforts by individuals and the organization to obtain for nurse practitioners full legal recognition and authority to practice in New York State, ultimately achieved in 1989. These important primary-source documents trace the almost twenty-year struggle to obtain the scope-of-practice legislation nurse practitioners sought, and reveal the intensity of labor required to coordinate and promote a campaign of political activism, often in the face of opposition from professional associations of physicians and nurses. Included in the collection are notices and minutes of organization meetings, in addition to materials concerning the coalition's annual conferences and various official publications. Records of legislative activity include numerous documents and reports assembled to develop ideas and proposals for legislation, as well as the texts of bills, revisions, and amendments for legislative action. Memoranda sent to members of the New York State legislature relate the range and nature of opposition and support for bills, complemented by transcripts of public hearing testimony. Reprint files contain articles of interest to nurse practitioners from the popular and professional press, and range from news about the Coalition to practice issues and professionalization. Correspondence files touch on all these topics. Notable correspondents include New York Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo, State Senator Tarky Lombardi, Jr., State Assemblyman Arthur O. Eve, and coalition founders and early members Bonnie Bullough, Elaine Gelman, Francesca Hartnett, Anne Loedy, Nancy J. Macintyre, and Patricia M. Quill, among many other individuals in civic and professional circles.

Dates

  • Creation: 1971-2005

Biographical / Historical

In March of 1980, a small group of nurse practitioners in Albany, New York, incorporated the "Nurse Practitioner Association" as a non-profit corporation to promote the interests of nurse practitioners. Later that year, meetings of a task force of nurse practitioners from different regions of the state led to the formation of the "Coalition of Organized Nurse Practitioner Associations of New York (COONPA)" on 24 January 1981, in Syracuse, New York. The dual objectives of the coalition at this time were to seek legal authority for nurse practitioners to practice and to organize statewide advocacy and lobbying efforts to obtain the requisite legislation. COONPA intended to coordinate the activities of a number of independently-formed regional groups. Soon, however, a more centralized structure developed, with regional chapters supporting the state-level organization, now opened to individual memberships, not just associations. In response to the change, the directors modified the name of the coalition in 1984 and established the "Coalition of Nurse Practitioners (CONP)" as an incorporated entity. The CONP, Inc. successfully promoted amendments to the New York State Hospital Code in 1985, permitting qualified registered nurses to perform primary health care at certain medical facilities. By 1988, intensive lobbying and educational efforts led to the major legislative victory that more clearly defined the scope of practice for nurse practitioners and included prescriptive privileges; the law took effect in 1989. Additional work centered on regulatory validation of prescriptive privileges -- particularly at the federal level -- credentialing, practice agreements, reimbursement, and liability coverage. In 1990, the CONP Board of Directors formalized a name change to the "New York State Coalition of Nurse Practitioners, Inc. (NYSCONP)." In 2002, while retaining the legal designation NYSCONP, Inc., the organization began to use an expanded version of the original inactive trade name: "Nurse Practitioner Association, New York State."

Coalition member and founder Nancy J. Macintyre received undergraduate and master's degrees in Nursing from the Teachers College, Columbia University in the 1950s, obtained a certificate as a Primary Care Nurse Practitioner from the Albany Medical College in 1972, and a doctorate in Education and Social Change from Walden University in Naples, Florida, in 1983. In addition to positions as a school nurse and health educator, Dr. Macintyre served as an assistant professor and director of the Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Albany Medical College from 1977 to 1982; she also held adjunct and visiting professorships in nurse practitioner programs at Russell Sage College and SUNY Utica Rome from 1994-96. From 1982 forward she was the principal of Macintyre Associates, a consulting firm, and in that capacity worked as a New York State registered lobbyist for the Coalition of Nurse Practitioners, Inc., from 1984-1989. She was an active member of the Coalition from its founding to 2003, and served as president in 1983. Dr. Macintyre held numerous professional appointments over her career, including multiple terms on the New York State Board of Nursing and the New York State Health Department Advisory Council for Physician Assistants and Surgical Assistants, as well as the Board for Professional Medical Conduct, where she was also a member of the Legislation and By-Laws Committee. Her community interests ranged from museum, library, and historical society memberships, to the Capital District YMCA, the American Red Cross, the League of Women Voters, Planned Parenthood, and Literacy Volunteers, among many others. Near the end of her life, she co-wrote a book with Anne Decker on the history of nurse practitioners in New York State: A Few Strong Women (New York: The Troy Book Makers, 2006). Nancy J. Macintyre's letters and papers in the NYSCONP Collection reveal her to have been a remarkably dedicated and energetic woman, who approached the cause of nurse practitioners with passion, good humor, self-effacement, and unfailing conviction.

Extent

5.5 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

A large and important collection of primary source material concerning the effort to obtain legal recognition and authority to practice for New York State nurse practitioners, ultimately achieved in 1989.

Arrangement

The collection consists of two series corresponding to the two gifts of NYSCONP papers made in 2009. The first series, an institutional donation, has been arranged by general subject headings as follows: 1) administration, 2) artifacts, 3) conferences, 4) history, 5) meetings/minutes, 6) miscellaneous, 7) obituaries, 8) publications, 9) reports, 10) vision statement, and 11) related non-NYSCONP items. These materials fill five manuscript boxes. The second series, designated the "Nancy J. Macintyre Donation," includes both personal and institutional papers, largely assembled by Dr. Macintyre. The NYSCONP items have been arranged chronologically by type: 1) correspondence; 2) legislation: development and reports; 3) legislation: bills, laws, and memoranda; 4) legislation: testimony; and 5) reprints. The "reprints" heading subsumes newspapers and journal articles. Papers relating to the donation, to Nancy J. Macintyre's c.v. and personal documentation, and to the Albany Medical College have been placed at the beginning of the series; other Macintyre items and miscellaneous reports have been filed chronologically with the NYSCONP materials. Photographs and images fall at the end. The Macintyre donation of the NYSCONP Collection fills seven manuscript boxes.

Author
Henry K. Sharp
Date
2011
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the The Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry Repository

Contact:
University of Virginia School of Nursing
P.O. Box 800782
Charlottesville Virginia 22908-0782 United States