Evolution of accreditation in continuing nursing education in America

There is widespread agreement that nurses must acquire and maintain the specialized knowledge needed to provide highly skilled care and to demonstrate their competence to the public, their employers, their profession, and patients on an ongoing basis throughout their work lives. Nurses report that continuing nursing education is the third most vital component of nursing skill building. Nurses from states that mandate continuing nursing education, as well as those from states that do not, rank continuing nursing education just after their workplace experience and their basic nursing education in importance. A wide range of organizations create and disseminate continuing nursing education to nurses in states with and without mandated continuing nursing education requirements. Although there is no governmental standard for the field, nursing monitors education across work-life stages. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing monitors nursing licensure and continuing nursing education. The credentialing arm of the American Nurses Association, the American Nurses Credentialing Center, acting in synch with national organizations that call for accreditation standards in the health care professions, provides review and accreditation of providers and approvers of continuing nursing education on a national basis and is, itself, internationally certified by International Standards for a Sustainable World.