Here is the discussion from April 10:
Tricia represents the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and is the Board Chair for nursing certification. They have been discussing credentialing of Clinical Nurse Leaders at the national level and identifying these nurses as board certified in their specialty area. Her interest is to make sure the schema is able to represent this important credential. This program is accredited by the NCAA. Valerie mentioned that on slide 2 CertificationOrganization is listed as the American Board of Nursing and that was incorrect. NCAA accreditation could be indicated in the CertificationOrganization field, or we could create a new field.
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Valerie reviewed options for conveying accreditation of a credential: use the existing CertificationOrganization element, or creating something new for accreditation, or change the name of the CertificationOrganization to something more generic such as oversight body. Prasad commented he thought there was a need to have both of them. Amy added, as long as the definitions aren’t dissimilar, the element could be repeated if you had more than one authority. The only reason to have two different elements is if they represent substantially different concepts. As long as their activities are largely the same they could be the same element. The group asked Valerie to investigate whether there may be both accreditation and certification of a certification program. Valerie will follow up with Kevin and Tricia regarding specialty certification in Pharmacy and Nursing.
Here are my research findings.
- Nursing certification programs are often accredited. In some instances, they are accredited by multiple accreditors.The ANCC has several programs with dual accreditation (The Accreditation Board for Specialty Nursing Certification and the National Commission for Certifying Agencies).
- Pharmacy certification programs are offered through the Board of Pharmacy Specialties. BPS Specialty Certification Programs in Nuclear Pharmacy, Nutrition Support Pharmacy, Oncology Pharmacy, Pharmacotherapy and Psychiatric Pharmacy are recognized as accredited certification programs by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies, (NCCA). The Ambulatory Care Pharmacy specialty certification program applied for accreditation in 2013.
- The Commission for Certification in Geriatric Pharmacy has received accreditation from the National Commission for Certifying Agencies as well.
- Detailed information about pharmacy credentialing is available at: http://www.pharmacycredentialing.org/Files/CertificationPrograms.pdf (many thanks to Kevin Clauson for providing this info).