Impact of Nurse Certification Rates on Patient Satisfaction and Outcomes

How to Obtain Contact Hours by Reading This Issue

Instructions: 1.1 contact hours will be awarded by Villanova University College of Nursing upon successful completion of this activity. A contact hour is a unit of measurement that denotes 60 minutes of an organized learning activity. This is a learner-based activity. Villanova University College of Nursing does not require submission of your answers to the quiz. A contact hour certificate will be awarded after you register, pay the registration fee, and complete the evaluation form online at http://goo.gl/gMfXaf. In order to obtain contact hours you must:

1. Read the article, “Impact of Nurse Certification Rates on Patient Satisfaction and Outcomes: A Literature Review,” found on pages 549–554, carefully noting any tables and other illustrative materials that are included to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the content. Be sure to keep track of the amount of time (number of minutes) you spend reading the article and completing the quiz.

2. Read and answer each question on the quiz. After completing all of the questions, compare your answers to those provided within this issue. If you have incorrect answers, return to the article for further study.

3. Go to the Villanova website to register for contact hour credit. You will be asked to provide your name, contact information, and a VISA, MasterCard, or Discover card number for payment of the $20.00 fee. Once you complete the online evaluation, a certificate will be automatically generated.

This activity is valid for continuing education credit until November 30, 2018.

Contact Hours

This activity is co-provided by Villanova University College of Nursing and SLACK Incorporated.

Villanova University College of Nursing is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.

Objectives

• Describe the purpose of nurse certification.

• State indicators that correlate with nursing certification and related outcomes.

Disclosure Statement

Neither the planners nor the authors have any conflicts of interest to disclose.

The Institute of Medicine's report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health states that continued competence requires lifelong learning. Certification measures lifelong learning by validating the expertise of nurses in specialty areas beyond those required by licensure examinations. Current research provides limited quantitative evidence to support a positive correlation between nurse certification rates and patient satisfaction and outcomes. The health care industry and affiliated professionals are experiencing increased public scrutiny and accountability through mandated quality of care measures that impact monetary reimbursement. Increased public scrutiny and accountability highlights the need for research to substantiate the quantitative benefits of nurse certification on patient satisfaction and outcomes. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey scores, the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program, and the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators^® are potential sources for producing the reliable and valid evidence needed to convince RNs, hospital administrators, and all other stakeholders that nurse certification has a quantifiable correlation with patient satisfaction and outcomes.

J Contin Nurs Educ. 2015;46(12):549–554.