Washington State: Streamline Skills Testing for Your Nursing Assistant Students and Employees

Posted in INDUSTRY NEWS, Long-Term Care

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP
Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare

Sharing the following on behalf of the Department of Health:…

Dear Employers of Nursing Assistants:

GOOD NEWS! We have worked to streamline skills testing for your nursing assistant students and employees:

  • On August 7, 2023, the Washington State Board of Nursing (WABON) expanded its ability to approve most nursing assistant training programs’ RN Directors and RN Instructors to conduct nursing assistant skills testing at their programs for their students.
  • We know employers have a need for their employees to complete training, testing, and certification processes as efficiently as possible and many care settings have federal or state timelines to meet (i.e., nursing homes and other long-term care settings). We think the plan we are working toward will meet all employers’ needs for skills testing effectively.
  • There are still many details to work out regarding this plan, which we would like to discuss with you via Zoom this week (see dates/times/link below).
  • The main objective to allowing training programs to evaluate students in their program sites is: to allow for a more massive, rapid infusion of skills testing slots for all nursing assistant students in our state. 
  • Please Note:  This plan will take time to develop and currently scheduled test dates for the written and skills exam will be unaffected. Programs with skills and written exams already scheduled with Credentia, and students who have registered and paid to test should not cancel their exams, but test as scheduled.
  • In broad terms, other outcomes eventually hope to achieve with this plan include: 
  • Immediate qualification of approved training programs who participate as testing sites based on a completed attestation they have all required equipment and supplies.
  • Recognition of training programs’ RN Directors and Instructors as qualified to evaluate once they have completed initial steps to participate, including training.
  • Scheduling new graduates for testing in their programs as a cohort 4-5 days after graduation.
  • Addressing expressed concerns regarding evaluator pay.
  • We expect unchanged aspects of testing infrastructure will include: 
  • RN evaluators complete training prior to evaluating.RN evaluators implement the skills exam as trained.
  • RN evaluators are paid for evaluating (noting the need for more discussion)
  • Students register for skills test dates using Credentia’s system.
  • Credentials securely transfers student results to DOH Credentialing and the OBRA Registry.
  • Students take the written (or oral) exam via remote proctoring.

Please join Kathy Moisio, Director of Nursing Assistant Programs, Washington State Board of Nursing (WABON), for one of these live webinars THIS WEEK to learn more, ask questions, provide input, and participate. 

 Our apologies for the short notice–We are making plans in real-time to try to provide a massive infusion of skills testing availability for students. We expect this will be evolving work with ongoing communications involved. We look forward to collaborating with you on input and next steps!

Thank you.