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Purpose: This study compares the expected nurse-to-patient ratio, penalties for violating these regulations, and the laws enacted in the medical and nursing fields in Korea and advanced countries like Germany, Australia, the United States, and Japan., Methods: This study deployed an integrative review method and used search terms such as "nursing law," "nurse ratio," "nurse," "nurse staffing," "health," and "staffing" to find articles published in English, Korean, German, or Japanese through Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature Plus with Full Text, the Westlaw (International Materials-Jurisdiction) site, US government and state sites (federal parliament, National Conference of State Legislatures), and Google Scholar., Results: Compared with medical laws in other advanced countries, Korean laws are quite crude and its nurse-to-patient ratio does not reflect patients' status. Korea also lacks strict penalties for nurse staffing ratio violations., Conclusion: Korea requires a strong regulatory apparatus for nurse staffing in health-care organizations to improve the quality of its health-care services and patient safety., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest No conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

For a variety of reasons the activities performed by health care professionals are ever increasing, however the legislative process regulating these specialised workers is not keeping up with the practice realities. While competency statements and credentialling mechanisms are developing, they are not uniformly in place for specialists. Therefore activities completed by these practitioners may be legally controversial. This study documents a variety of tasks completed independently by nurses employed in three acute care hospitals that legally require medical orders and then examines the legal implications of this role extension. Credentialling is one mechanism by which nurses and other health care professionals can ensure they possess the levels of knowledge and skill required to perform the advanced activities required of them and consequently avoid negative legal repercussions.