I am an Indian BSN graduate. I graduated in the year 2007. I worked for India in two years and did not work for 5 years due to personal reasons. Then I started working in USA since 2015 till now. I applied for CRNBC RN license in 2016 and it was a very smooth process. So I wanted to share my two cents to help other nursesTo obtain license in any state in Canada, your credentials must be evaluated by NNAS. I applied to NNAS on August 20, 2016. I had to submit my license from India and US for verification, college transcripts and professional work experience in the past 5 years. NNAS issued an advisory report on November 15, 2016. The report mentioned that my education was not comparable to the Canadian education.
I now feel that NNAS was more complicated process than CRNBC. But, I feel that both NNAS and CRNBC are very responsive to emails. CRNBC more than NNAS. With NNAS, I got responses for my queries the next working day. But with CRNBC, I got replies the same working day, if I email them in the morning hours.
I became very anxious, worrying that CRNBC might make me take assessment exam or much worse redo the course. I applied to CRNBC on November 16, 2016.
1. They will electronically get the NNAS report. But asked me to do an English test. I replied via email saying that I have been working in an English speaking country for about 2000 hours and requested them to waive that requirement. They granted my plea and waived that requirement the next day via email. That was the first time I was very impressed by CRNBC for being so quick, efficient and considerate of license applicants.
2. Then there was a minor issue about difference of names in documents. All my Indian documents had only my first name and initial. But all my US documents had first name and initial expanded as last name. They sent me an affidavit, which I filled, got notarized and sent via email. It was a pretty easy process
3. After that they found out that I started working a month after graduation, but got my Indian RN license only after one year. I explained that working while waiting for RN license is allowed in India. They asked the licensing board to email them regarding the same. I contacted my licensing board, that was the tough part. Had to do a lot of explanations and pay more money, finally they sent a letter approving my work experience without license. Then the board had no issues with it.
4. Then they were examining my work experience. They asked proof and I sent around 40 pages of my timecard, which mentioned the number of hours worked and the units worked too. I had more than 2000 hours in 18 months. I sent those documents on January 26, 2017.
5. On January 30, 2017 came the happy news via email. They said that my assessment was complete. I had to consent for criminal record check and submit a statutory declaration form. I completed and emailed the forms back on Feb 1, 2017.
6. On Feb 3, 2017, they emailed me that I meet the requirements for practicing RN registration in BC. I had to fill a form and make payment. I completed the form and sent the next day, but did not make payment until March because their registration year is every March to Feb.
I made payment in March and I got my RN license for BC, CANADA from March 2017 to Feb 2018. HURRRAAAYYY!!!!!
I read in allnurses forum about many difficult lengthy processes for many other applicants who had to take SEC assessment and NCAS. But I did not have to go through any of that.
That is why I wanted to share my story to give hope to International graduates. I got my license within 5 months of deciding to apply.
If you have any questions regarding the process, I will be happy to help
I had a look at that thread, Thanks! Although I wasn't given any option by CRNBC to do any education, I suppose by doing NCAS I am being given the opportunity to prove my abilities and perhaps, if I perform well, I will be offered the chance to do the individual modules rather then the entire bridging program. It seems from that thread that if you are requested to do the modules you get granted a provisional registration with the caveat that you don't go delivering any babies haha!
It's all paid for and booked now so just have to move forward with it! We are incorporating a bit of a summer holiday into the trip so we have that to look forward to! :-)
I wonder what would have happened if you were applying in BC.../QUOTE]
I wonder what would have happened if I applied to BC as well! It's possible that the timing is the reason for such different experiences. But I would hope that CNO would do something about some applicants being unreasonably put through this and others not...
I find it interesting (and quite enraging) that the Council meeting in September raised the issue but stuck to the party line that NNAS is a valid assessment tool, all the while clearly not using it as such and finding "non comparable" applicants equivalent to Canadian educated entry to practice requirements. CNO finds NNAS inaccurate so much so that they have decided to review every "non comparable" case since NNAS began.
From Council minutes: "At the beginning, regulators were cautious and it was agreed nationally to use the reports generated as a result of the tool as advisory. The College has come to the determination that the tool is valid and is the most fair and consistent way of assessing applicants as a first step in
the assessment process. Staff are proposing a new process which they believe will provide a rigorous assessment and enhance the opportunities for international applicants to provide evidence that they meet the entry to practice competencies. If approved, the College will review the assessments from all
international applicants who had been assessed as not meeting requirements since the National
Service began providing the College with reports."
So CNO is contradicting itself within just a few sentences: validating and then immediately invalidating the NNAS assessment.
... Being a NICU nurse, I REALLY thought I would have to do it (but happy to have avoided it)
I would have thought you'd have to do the assessment too, given the focus on mental health and therapeutic communication within Canadian nursing practice.
I think that CNO is saying that NNAS is valid in that it assesses the education for similarities to the entry-to-practice competencies, but the regulatory bodies' interpretation of the advisory reports was resulting in high numbers of applicants not making it through the registration process. The step that needed to change was how the RBs responded to the advisory reports. The RBs changed their steps to allow IENs to demonstrate proof of gaps in the competencies through their work experience by providing the RB with a letter from their employer. It's a reasonable and fair change to the the process.
The regulatory bodies created NNAS in part because they needed to have a consistent, national, legally defensible initial assessment service and NNAS meets this need. For information on the development of NNAS google the powerpoint presentation entitled 'National Nursing Assessment Implementation Project Presentation to the IEHP round table Ottawa Jan 2014'.
The main problem isn't that the NNAS advisory reports show that IENs education is not comparable or somewhat comparable, most IENs do not have an education similar to the Canadian entry-to-practice competencies. The problem seems to be the lack of transparency regarding the regulatory bodies responses to the advisory reports and the criteria that they use to determine if the applicant needs to undergo further competency assessment. Applicants should not have to guess which province they should apply to, because one province will require them to undergo further competency assessment and the other province won't. Discrepancy between provinces is inconsistent with the Agreement on International Trade and greater ease of mobility of nurses between provinces. Hopefully the RBs will try to ensure they are consistent with their steps.
Another powerpoint presentation that some may find interesting is entitled "Pursuit of a National Harmonized Approach to IEN Assessment for Licensure in Canada-the National Nursing Assessment Service"
Presented by Siu Mee Cheng, Lynn Power, Ann Mann, presented to CHWC Conference Oct 5 2016. the powerpoint and the abstract give some stats on NNAS applicants for example; NNAS has served over 7,000 IENs, 46% were educated in the Philippines, 31% in India, 3% in USA. Applicants by province 41% Ontario, 22% Alberta, 20% BC.
Quote from the presentation "A critical lesson learned is that harmonization in regulatory practices and policies that leads to large-scale systems transformation requires relinquishing old organizational policies, practices, values and beliefs in order to make way for the new."
@dishes I agree with you on the point about lack of transparency as well as inconsistency with the Agreement on International Trade. You make a good point about differences between provinces meaning that applicants will need to research which province is more lenient. As well, there will be an imbalance in applications across provinces.
I have read the articles and presentations, but continue to respectively disagree with the idea that NNAS is a valid tool for assessing similarities to Canadian nursing education. Yes, I understand most applicants do not have a nursing education that is similar to a Canadian education. But if NNAS is to be considered a valid tool then that means it must be a valid tool for all=-including US-educated nurses. The fact remains that the NNAS assessment is still finding US-educated nurses "non comparable", even though the nurses were educated at schools that were previously (up until Aug 2014) CNO approved and the curriculum has not changed. And I mean many, many US schools. Testing NNAS against foreign nursing programs that were deemed comparable prior to NNAS would have been the perfect method of validity testing. The one recent American forum participant who studied at D'Youville, for example, was found "non-comparable" by NNAS even though that school was accepted up until NNAS began. One of the problems is within NNAS itself, not solely how licensing bodies were interpreting the results. If the latter were the case then what is the point of NNAS assessments in the first place? For US-educated applicants and likely some others, NNAS is not picking up on their education which is highly comparable to Canadian entry to practice, and recognized as such prior to NNAS.
I understand what you are saying RN_Pro, but the regulatory bodies created the NNAS assessment tool and it represents a measurement tool that reflects the Canadian nurses entry-to-practice education more accurately than the previous various assessments that were done at the provincial level in the past and legally they have the right to move forward and not look back at the past.
We don't have statistics on how many US educated applicants were deemed comparable, somewhat comparable and not comparable by NNAS. We have posts from approximately 20 applicants who were deemed not comparable or somewhat comparable but we cannot assume the posts represent the majority of the 100s of US educated applicants.
We don't know how many pages of curricula and related information the applicant's school submitted to NNAS . It is possible that those whose schools submitted hundreds of pages of information had better advisory report results, than those whose schools submitted less than a hundred pages. To me it makes sense, (based on my own Canadian BScN education and from looking at various other nursing programs across Canada) that 100s of pages of curricula related information are needed to capture all of the entry-to-practice competencies.
We don't know if some applicants followed the directions on the NNAS website carefully or not, some posters reported being surprised that NNAS initially rejected their employer's letters when they were mailed by the applicant instead by the employer. That to me reflects a lack of understanding of fraud assessment on the part of the applicant, not an offensive behaviour by NNAS as it is their job to ensure that all of the applicant information comes from the official sources. It is how they ensure that the information was not tampered with by the applicant.
Hopefully, there will be greater transparency from NNAS, the RBs and the assessment vendors so that applicants can understand the processes more clearly before they start the application process and while they are undergoing the assessments.
I am the individual who wrote about the employer letter being rejected. I provided my manager with a self-addressed stamped envelope paper clipped to the form that she had to complete by hand. I did not see the document again. They rejected the envelope because it had my return address on it and lacked a hospital "stamp" or "seal". They declined to contact the manager to inquire whether she sent the letter directly- why ask for the manager's contact information and then decline to use it to answer a straightforward question. Also, if that document was for some reason lost or returned I needed it to come back to me so I would know about it. My manager just about fell off her chair when I told her NNAS wanted a new letter with a stamp or seal. Does your hospital have that kind of stuff? Mine for sure didn't. I have no idea what she cobbled up in the end...
The NNAS handbook says: "Ask each employer to complete the NursingPractise/Employment Form and send it directly toNNAS by mail or courier."
It says nothing about a stamp or seal or even official letterhead. The return address is neither here nor there. I never saw the form again. The manager would verify that. NNAS created more work, not for me but for my already overworked manager. Then they tried to reject my education form, insisting that a box was unchecked. I helplessly and tearfully sat there on the phone while a customer service rep told me I would have to resubmit that (and this is after the first submission was "lost" in the mailroom). Thank goodness my dean saved a PDF of that document because they were wrong! As far as I am concerned, NNAS needs to shape up and start to model the standards they expect of others.
@nicu_gal, you were not the only applicant who was surprised that the letter had to be in the employers envelope with proof that it was mailed directly from the employer, others have also mentioned it. Many organization ask for letters or documents to be sent in this manner, it is a standard method to verify that the document is authentic, it's not unique to NNAS. I have had to use this method when sending information to post secondary schools in the past.
Many healthcare facilities have business envelopes with their return address as well as a postage paid stamp that is stamped through a machine at their healthcare facility, it's common practice even in small hospitals.
NNAS needs to specify what they're looking for, as the handbook does not dictate the type of envelope/stamp/seal/return address. In the meantime, hopefully prospective applicants can learn from the experiences of those who have endured the process. Living in DC I could get regular mail to and from Philly in less than 2 business days- heck, I could drive it there myself in less than 3 hours. But I know that's not the case for most applicants.
I can confirm that the instructions that NNAS supplies to us and our employers/schools/regulatory bodies does not specify that the documents need to be received on a letterhead or official envelope. NNAS also tried to decline the information sent by my school because they apparently sent it in a plain envelope, but had stamped each individual page with a stamp from the School. NNAS eventually accepted what was sent after they emailed my School to confirm they indeed sent the information, but the School was certainly not impressed with NNAS accusing them of not following directions, and let them know this (I was CC'd into these emails).
... it represents a measurement tool that reflects the Canadian nurses entry-to-practice education more accurately than the previous various assessments that were done at the provincial level in the past and legally they have the right to move forward and not look back at the past
...
We don't know how many pages of curricula and related information the applicant's school submitted to NNAS ...
We don't know if some applicants followed the directions on the NNAS website carefully or not...That to me reflects a lack of understanding of fraud assessment on the part of the applicant, not an offensive behaviour by NNAS as it is their job to ensure that all of the applicant information comes from the official sources...
Hopefully, there will be greater transparency from NNAS, the RBs and the assessment vendors so that applicants can understand the processes more clearly before they start the application process and while they are undergoing the assessments.
It might be more accurate than what was used in the past, but, it is still a far cry from being an accurate measure of how well an IEN's education meets Canadian equivalent. It is not catching some nursing education that is equivalent, and that is a problem that the licensing bodies are not opening up about. It appears that legally, licensing bodies can do what they want without having to explain themselves or their processes. But they also have an obligation to ensure that their assessments are fair. Legally they may not have to look in the past. But is it fair to know that the assessment is missing the ability to capture nursing education from schools that licensing bodies know were acceptable before and who have not changed their curriculum/curriculum has not lowered in quality or content, and to not do anything about or be transparent about this fact? Just because they can doesn't mean they should.
Along with the 4-year US BSN educations that were "non-comparable", we have:
-3 year adult nursing degree from the UK: comparable
-University of Southern Queensland (AUS): comparable
-nursing degree from Philippines: somewhat comparable
-nursing degree from Pakistan: somewhat comparable
-University of West Indies nursing degree: non-comparable but CNO gave a license anyway without IENCAP
I know that we want to be hopeful that the issues lie with applicants not understanding the application process and how to ensure documents have been submitted properly etc. In many cases this is likely a big factor. But we can't let it mask the fact that despite the proper information being sent in, NNAS still does not do a good job of assessing the education of IENs. I can assure you that my school sent in hundreds of pages of syllabi and course/program information. I checked with NNAS and this was considered to be quite a robust and complete submission--they assured that there is nothing more that I could submit which would contribute to a more favourable outcome because of the way the assessment was set up to look for key words. I agree that the website and videos on how to apply for NNAS do not provide the level of detail that NNAS expects on the other end. They have been made aware of this by myself and others, yet, nothing changes and nobody makes them change. Unfortunately the experience is all too common with NNAS. In sum, I'd argue most of the issues stem from a lack of action by NNAS, not from the applicant's understanding of process.
The NNAS assessment is based on the same competencies that are the framework for the Canadian nursing education. It's possible that there were US educated nurses whose education was not comparable to the competencies before NNAS existed. CNO used a similar competency based assessment prior to NNAS and if you look through the fair registration practice reports from 2009-2016 the percentage of US educated nurses who made it through to registration has varied from approximately 40-80%.
I don't understand the discrepancies either RN_Pro, but I think the key to understanding the NNAS assessment is understanding the Canadian entry-to-practice competencies in order to know which key words NNAs is comparing the curriculum content to.
Parasol
16 Posts
Hi
I had a look at that thread, Thanks! Although I wasn't given any option by CRNBC to do any education, I suppose by doing NCAS I am being given the opportunity to prove my abilities and perhaps, if I perform well, I will be offered the chance to do the individual modules rather then the entire bridging program. It seems from that thread that if you are requested to do the modules you get granted a provisional registration with the caveat that you don't go delivering any babies haha!
It's all paid for and booked now so just have to move forward with it! We are incorporating a bit of a summer holiday into the trip so we have that to look forward to! :-)