The Washington State Board of Nursing (WABON) is actively working to streamline nursing assistant skills testing and increase skills testing slots available to students, meeting federal and state timelines for certification and employment.
On August 7, 2023, WABON expanded its ability to approve eligible nursing assistant training programs’ RN Directors and RN Instructors to conduct nursing assistant skills testing at their programs for their students.
Critical Note: This plan will take time to develop and currently scheduled test dates for the written and skills exam will NOT be affected. Programs with skills and written exams already scheduled with Credentia, and students who have registered and paid to test should keep their appointments and test as scheduled.
- The goal is to allow training programs to evaluate students within their program sites to increase testing opportunities.
Anticipated benefits:
- Immediate qualification of approved training programs to participate as testing sites upon confirmation of required equipment and supplies.
- Recognition of training programs’ RN Directors and RN Instructors as qualified evaluators once they have completed initial steps to participate, including training.
- Ability to schedule new graduates for cohort testing within their programs as soon as 5 days after graduation.
- Address concerns regarding evaluator pay.
Unchanged aspects of testing infrastructure:
- RN evaluators complete training prior to evaluating students.
- RN evaluators implement the skills exam as trained.
- RN evaluators are paid for evaluating (note the need for more discussion)
- Students register for skills test dates using the Credentia system.
- Students take the written (or oral) exam via remote proctoring.
- Credentia securely transfers student results to DOH Credentialing and the OBRA Registry.
We will continue to provide additional updates as the work progresses.