Protocol · RN · Connecticut
Practice Protocol for Registered Nurses in Connecticut
Registered Nurses practice independently in Connecticut. A practice protocol is voluntary; here is what one covers and what the state does require.
RNs (general licensure, not an APRN) are not subject to a physician-supervision or collaborative-agreement requirement in Connecticut. §20-87a(a) defines RN practice as including 'executing the medical regimen under the direction of a licensed physician, dentist or advanced practice registered nurse' for individual orders — categorically different from the APRN collaboration relationship above, which gates the RN's independent-diagnosis scope, not general RN licensure itself.
What a voluntary Registered Nurse protocol covers in Connecticut
Connecticut requires no written protocol for registered nurses. These are the clauses a practice includes when it chooses to put one in writing. The Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing governs registered nurses here.
The Registered Nurse ("RN") shall practice under the orders, standing orders, or delegation of the Physician, consistent with the Connecticut Nurse Practice Act, Conn. Gen. Stat. ch. 378. Connecticut law does not require a collaborative or delegation agreement for this Registered Nurse's general scope of practice; the Physician shall instead be available to the Registered Nurse for consultation regarding clinical and patient care issues arising under any order or delegation.
- A voluntary protocol also carries 2 scope, 2 education and 2 registration clauses, authored in the document itself.
What Connecticut does require
The supervision and prescribing rules that apply to registered nurses regardless of any protocol.
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 Connecticut; they execute the medical regimen and administer medications only as ordered by a physician, dentist, APRN, or other practitioner authorized by law to prescribe (§20-87a(a)).
Written agreement
Not required
Unconditional — general RN licensure is never subject to a collaboration requirement in Connecticut, unlike the APRN categories above.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Licensee-only ownership required — Professional Service Corporation under § 33-182a — RNs are an independently eligible licensee category and may wholly own a PSC rendering nursing services without physician participation.
Non-clinical businesses an RN might own (staffing agency, home health agency) fall outside § 33-182a's licensed-service PSC framework entirely and carry no ownership restriction.
Sources for the supervision rules (2)
About Connecticut's rules
NP, CNS, and CRNA are all licensed as a single 'advanced practice registered nurse' category (§20-94a) sharing an identical 3-year/2,000-hour collaboration-to-independence pathway (§20-87a); CT does not statutorily distinguish PMHNP or CNS scope from general NP. CNMs are licensed separately (Ch. 377), with no written collaborative-agreement requirement. No provider type below has a codified supervision ratio cap, chart-review percentage, or on-site proximity radius outside CRNA's surgery-specific carve-out.
Other clinicians in Connecticut: see the state overview.