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Although the notion that continuing education of healthcare professionals intuitively fits into the equation of how one maintains and augments ongoing expertise in one’s profession, the inability of the healthcare professions to consistently lay out incontestable "proof " in whatever scientific form the moment requires (ie, as data, evidence, research, facts, standards, and like verities) has—under austere healthcare services budgets—led to rescinded requirements of continuing education for relicensure of nurses in many states. As an educator who has heavily promoted incorporation of competency-based approaches to nursing staff development for more than 25 years, I have never subscribed to the assertion that the simple acquisition of x number of hours of continuing education instruction (or x number of continuing education units (CEUs), contact hours, or any other unit of measured endurance) has any consistently verifiable positive association with the level at which nursing is practiced. Likewise, I would not equate academic degrees, years of work, or any other credential as prima facie proof of expertise or competence or anything more than that credential actually required—that is, completion of a written or computerized multiple-choice item test at or above a specified level of performance.
That said, I have 2 more points to share on the topic at hand, that is, the value of certification as a CCRN. The first is influenced (highly biased) by my own past experience of being a CCRN. Although I am no longer eligible for this credential, I know that I was at my clinical practice prime during the years I was certified and recertified as a CCRN. I don’t believe that I was incompetent before I earned that certification and I don’t believe that I became an instant expert upon earning it. I always knew colleagues who were as good or better than I as a critical care staff nurse or clinical nurse specialist, who, for whatever reason(s), did not happen to be CCRNs. Also, if I had to be brutally honest, I knew a few CCRNs who did not sit atop my list of I-would-most-want-to-work-this-shift-with nurses. However, in 99.8% of cases, the type of nurse who would "bother" to pursue and maintain CCRN certification purely for his or her own professional satisfaction, study and practice on his or her own time, struggle to understand complex clinical situations, and search for interventions to support our most tenuous and fragile patients—that was the type of critical care nurse I most wanted on my shift. Back when I had only my own self to look out for, I concluded that being a great critical care nurse did not require a CCRN, but all else being equal—the type of nurses who cared that much about what they did every day as nurses—that mattered to me, my patients, and my unit. Now that I’m a wife, mother, and grandmother in addition to being a daughter, it matters even more. If I could handpick a critical care nurse to provide care to any member of my family, I would be well aware that choosing a CCRN is no guarantee (as in "proof") of expertise, but I’m still convinced I’d be stacking the odds of great nursing care in my favor.
My second point regarding the value of CCRN certification is even less scientific than the first. In 2001, when the AACN Certification Corporation inaugurated the CCRN Alumnus program, I mailed my application and check back on the same day the notice arrived in the mail. This is a particularly poignant notation, given that our mail doesn’t arrive until after 4 PM. Did I see value in the CCRN credential? After enduring virtual withdrawal when I no longer qualified for recertification as a CCRN, I couldn’t apply fast enough to acquire the designation of CCRN Used To Be. You can calculate the value-added dimension for yourself.
Reference
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