NNAS- Canadian citizens with US education/licensure

[nicu_gal]

If there are any other Canadian RNs out there who went to school in the US and have been licensed in the US, I would like to hear your NNAS experiences. Have you received a "non-comparable" report? If so, have you been able to obtain provincial licensure in spite of being labeled "non-comparable?'" Are you currently living/working in Canada as a RN? How long did it take for you to receive your advisory report? What was your total cost (admin/mailing fees/cost to have licenses verified, etc)?

Nursing leaders in Canada needs to know how their "streamlined" process is actually impacting Canadian nurses who are trying to practice in our home country. NNAS states on their website that the organization "strives for transparency, timeliness and harmonization across its member jurisdictions while applying rigorous standards for assessing qualifications"- however these "standards" are not disclosed to applicants. This organization receives funding from the provinces and the federal government, and yet there is zero transparency for applicants regarding the assessment process. Applicants blindly throw their money (in US dollars) at this agency before having access to the required forms, and even then have NO idea what the criteria is. How objective can this be?

Furthermore, both US and Canadian nurses are credentialed with the NCLEX now, so shouldn't there be a pathway for RNs who have passed the NCLEX in the US?

This process MUST be improved and I would like to start by compiling the experiences of other nurses to take to leaders in nursing in Canada.

Thank you in advance for your time!

[RN_Pro]

The statistics in NNAS' annual report for 2014-15 showed 'they received 4,027 applications, the average processing time was 102 days and 89% strongly agreed or agreed that their overall NNAS experience had been positive'. I cannot see NNAS's annual report for the 2015-16 time period, I am not sure if they did one...

I know the report says 89% had a positive experience, but I don't buy that for one minute. Not one. I never received any sort of feedback/evaluation to complete from NNAS nor Touchstone. Trust me, I've been waiting and hoping for one! Ongoing evaluation should most definitely be built in.

As for the annual report, I can't find one either for 2015-2016. One should expect that with well over $3 million going through the company in it's first year alone, an annual report is the very least of the steps towards transparency that should be taken. Especially for the year that it seems many had negative experiences and applicants began to realize the depth of the NNAS Advisory Report situation.

Side note: interesting that they did not choose an RN to speak as well at the NNAS conference. I'd suggest that the NNAS experience is very different for RNs than for LPN/RPN's, as the assessment seems to function as a good funnel for RN's into LPN/RPN positions.

[nicu_gal]

I don't buy that 89% approval rating either!

[RN_Pro]

The NNAS Annual Report for 2016 is now available. For those who don't have time to read it I will summarize a few interesting points.

1)

IEN satisfaction with NNAS is now up to 92.5% !! As wait times get longer and longer, and confusion grows wider and wider, satisfaction increases by 3.5% ?!? Hahaha I actually laughed out loud when I read this! What a joke. I'd love to know who they are surveying and at what point they are surveying. Just those 5 or 10 people who are "comparable"? I have never received any sort of evaluation/survey from NNAS regarding customer satisfaction. Has anyone on this forum ever received anything?

2) After the costs of running the business, NNAS profited $430,579 in 2016. This is $391,026 more profit than the year before. Unfortunately the report does not disclose salaries in the operational budget/financial statement, which I find quite odd.

3) The rest of the report is a bunch of wordy "feel goods", applauding all the work they have done a photo of the party they had, complete with cake. There isn't any real information such as breakdown of applicant nationality or the % of applicants who received comparable, somewhat comparable, or non-comparable Advisory Reports. Stats for unimportant things, like how many phone calls the answered or emails they read, are highlighted in the report.

Needless to say, I'm disappointed but not at all surprised by the contents of this report. I'd like the report to focus on outcomes, rather than mere outputs. There needs to be greater accountability, especially because publicly funded licensing bodies are in partnership with this company and require IENs to become customers as a condition of applying for a license.

[dishes, BSN, RN]

Thanks for the update RN_Pro. I see the time period for the report is April 1/15 to March 31/16, which means applicants who applied between April 1/16 to March 31/17 will be in next years annual report. Can you ask NNAS how they do the survey? Do they mail it out to applicants after the fiscal year end? or is it available through the NNAS portal? Can any applicant who received their results during the fiscal year access the survey? What are the satisfaction questions that are asked on the survey? I think knowing what questions are asked on the survey, will help determine if the questions capture the applicant's real experience.

If the annual report was completed August 2016, why wasn't it available on the website until May 2017?

[RN_Pro]

Thanks for the update RN_Pro. I see the time period for the report is April 1/15 to March 31/16, which means applicants who applied between April 1/16 to March 31/17 will be in next years annual report. Can you ask NNAS how they do the survey? Do they mail it out to applicants after the fiscal year end? or is it available through the NNAS portal? Can any applicant who received their results during the fiscal year access the survey? What are the satisfaction questions that are asked on the survey? I think knowing what questions are asked on the survey, will help determine if the questions capture the applicant's real experience.

If the annual report was completed August 2016, why wasn't it available on the website until May 2017?

Hi @dishes,

I have a request out to the head office in Toronto for more details about the survey, as well as the absence of the salary line in the financial report. No response yet but I will definitely update if/when I receive a response. One should hope that they would respond...I do think it's a fair expectation that they do respond, given that their function and affiliations. Those are some good questions--if I hear from them I will follow up on those details as well. And excellent point about the report date--I didn't catch that one. I imagine they exercised some caution given the dissatisfaction of applicants and realization that changes need to be made. But I will ask and see what the response is.

My application falls within the timeframe of the report so I am very interested in finding out how this survey was distributed.

[Parasol]

I had a request to do this Survey from NNAS! It was sent by email to me on June 1st 2016. I had a email reminder about it two weeks later as I didn't complete it. I never did complete it as I didn't feel it would be accurate as I was only a few months into the process and hadn't sent off all the documentation yet.

There has been no offer to complete a survey now that I have completed the process. I clicked on the links in the email and they are no longer working. I'd love to fill out a satisfaction survey now that I have I have my report so I can highlight all the struggles I encountered! Doubt I'll get that opportunity though!

[dishes, BSN, RN]

@parasol, can you email NNAS and explain the reason you didn't do the survey in June 2016 and ask if you can do the survey now? Can you also ask how often they do the survey? (is it done annually, bi-annually, quarterly?) Do they typically wait until the applicant is finished the process?

Maybe the survey isn't on the overall NNAS experience, maybe it is based on an applicant's experience with a customer service representative? Parasol, do you remember if you phoned or emailed a NNAS rep shortly before receiving the survey?

[RN_Pro]

... I never did complete it as I didn't feel it would be accurate as I was only a few months into the process and hadn't sent off all the documentation yet...I'd love to fill out a satisfaction survey now that I have I have my report so I can highlight all the struggles I encountered! Doubt I'll get that opportunity though!

Thanks so much for the insight @Parasol !

Smooth move on NNAS's part--to survey before applicants even have real experience with the company and the process. I wish I had received this survey! Although, I suppose I would have been at the same stage as you so I wouldn't have been able to give responses reflective of my real experience either. Good questions @dishes. For me, I know I talked to customer service many times, and no survey opportunity.

[Parasol]

Hi,

I don't really know what the nature of the survey was supposed to be. The email didn't give much information about it. All it said was

" Dear Applicant,

NNAS strives to provide the highest quality customer care. In order to continuously improve our service, please click the following link to provide suggestions and/or comments that would enable NNAS to improve its current services: Survey Link

This survey is anonymous.

We appreciate your feedback.

Please do not reply to this message, it is not monitored.

Best regards,

NNAS".

I'll send off a email to them and see if they come back with anything like you suggested @dishes.

[RN_Pro]

...

I'll send off a email to them and see if they come back with anything like you suggested @dishes.

Thank you @Parasol, much appreciated!

[RN_Pro]

No response to my inquiry from NNAS head office. Quite disappointed at the lack of accountability.

Not to stir the pot, but I'm stirring the pot... There is a nurse educated in Pakistan who received "somewhat comparable" and without any further submission of job descriptions etc, CNO has determined her to have met the education requirement and she is moving forward to NCLEx-RN. I am continuously flabbergasted by this whole process. This is not to say that the nursing education she obtained in Pakistan is not of high quality, as it may be and likely is. But the point is that we know that the nursing education obtained through a BSN from an American university, especially one that was previously approved by the CNO up until NNAS came into play (like @abbg13 's education), is more comparable to Pakistan. Or Philippines. That doesn't devalue the education from Pakistan or Philippines, but it's just the honest truth about comparability.

So again, we see that the NNAS word search is not a valid assessment tool. Nursing educations that were not accepted prior to Aug 2014 are now being accepted, and those that were accepted without question, are not being accepted. The assessment tool shouldn't be this far off.

[dayandnight]

No response to my inquiry from NNAS head office. Quite disappointed at the lack of accountability.

Not to stir the pot, but I'm stirring the pot... There is a nurse educated in Pakistan who received "somewhat comparable" and without any further submission of job descriptions etc, CNO has determined her to have met the education requirement and she is moving forward to NCLEx-RN. I am continuously flabbergasted by this whole process. This is not to say that the nursing education she obtained in Pakistan is not of high quality, as it may be and likely is. But the point is that we know that the nursing education obtained through a BSN from an American university, especially one that was previously approved by the CNO up until NNAS came into play (like @abbg13 's education), is more comparable to Pakistan. Or Philippines. That doesn't devalue the education from Pakistan or Philippines, but it's just the honest truth about comparability.

So again, we see that the NNAS word search is not a valid assessment tool. Nursing educations that were not accepted prior to Aug 2014 are now being accepted, and those that were accepted without question, are not being accepted. The assessment tool shouldn't be this far off.

CNO has been known to be fairly inconsistent in their decisions. Ontario is one of the only provinces that arbitrarily decides who gets to be waived for the English proficiency requirements and who doesn't... Some people get exempted by having a few years of care aid experience, some even as a hotel manager. What is the point of NNAS if CNO can waive someone's English results or make someone just obtain the license with just the NCLEX (without the OSCE) given their "somewhat comparable" result.. From hearing other people's experiences, it seems that other provinces are more consistent with their decision and evaluation.