Case Study: Turning Nurses into Managers at CCI
March 18, 2008
Edited by Stacy Straczynski
The Company
The Competency and Credentialing Institute (CCI) is the industry leader in competency credentialing, assessment and education for healthcare practitioners working in surgical environments, with an emphasis on nurses. The organization strives to promote patient safety and help nurses provide a higher quality of care through assessment and credentialing.
The Challenge
While CCI offers a wide variety of certification and credentialing programs for a wide variety of perioperative nursing roles, the organization started hearing requests from candidates in 2005 for a certification program targeted at nurses in a management role. Specifically, customers were requesting a program that would help operating room nurses make the transition to a manager-level position.
The demand for a certification that would focus on the development of managerial skills required CCI to conduct an analysis to determine the level of demand, and also whether there was enough knowledge to warrant a separate and unique certification program. After a thorough job task analysis, CCI made the determination that while there was enough unique information to support a focused certification, there was not wide enough interest to support a full-blown program.
CCI needed to balance its desire to provide its candidates with a means of assessing competence while ensuring that they didn’t allocate a disproportionate amount of time and money developing a credentialing program that would service only a small minority of its population.
As CCI expanded its mission, there was also an increased need to embrace a wider definition of competency credentialing. A curriculum-based certificate program had the potential to meet the needs of a broader audience than traditional certification. It also allowed CCI to incorporate a "blended" approach to its certifications and assessments, which included delivering pre- and post-tests online, and having actual printed training/learning materials for candidates. CCI wanted to create a model that could be used for this managerial program and possibly expand it to its other assessments as well.
Solution
CCI enlisted its partner, Prometric, a technology-enabled testing and assessment company, to help decipher the issue of starting a management certificate program along with the blended approach to testing. Prometric helped CCI realize that the data it had collected could be put to good use in a way that CCI hadn’t initially intended.
Through Prometric's counsel, CCI looked at the managerial program in a different light. Rather than having to justify a new "certification" program, Prometric advised that the organization create an evidence-based "certificate" program that would serve as a learning and development resource, as well as an assessment opportunity to its candidates. While lacking the renewable and "name-brand" qualities of a certification program, the certificate offering could be modular, portable, educational and open book.
It was decided that the Management Certificate Program would be marketed as both a development and assessment tool. For $199, candidates could purchase a six book set outlining and describing the healthcare manager career as defined by the job analysis conducted by CCI and Prometric. The cost also included a pre-test and post-test so candidates could gauge their level of knowledge before and after.
The pre-test is taken at or around the time of purchase via Prometric's Internet-Based Testing (IBT) offering, providing candidate's with an immediate diagnostic profile. This profile shows the candidate which specific areas they need to work on with regard to the certificate program and essentially gives them an outline directing them to specific of areas of the books on which they should focus when studying. The post-test reflects whether the candidate has learned the content. A "Pass" or "Fail" grade is then given.
Results
The program, implemented on September 1, 2007, has been very successful so far, with over 300 people purchasing the Management Certificate Program kit. Although candidate feedback has not yet been completed, the initial response to the launch and the materials has been positive.
Future Plans
While no future evolutions are planned for the Manager Certificate Program other than routine information updates, CCI expects to apply the certificate program model to other clinical areas. As part of its 2008 strategic plan, CCI will consider which roles are best suited to this type of learning and assessment. CCI also uses Prometric's IBT offering to develop, deliver and maintain other credentialing-related products.
"We view Prometric as more of a partner than a vendor," said Shannon Carter, CEO of CCI. "They consistently come to the table with creative ideas and suggestions for bringing additional value to our candidates while helping us achieve our mission to provide competency credentialing that enhances patient safety."
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