Continuing Nursing Education (CNE) Credit System --
Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital

Mr. Andrew Luk
Senior Nursing Officer(Training & Development), Central Nursing Division, Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital

Introduction

Registration can never be seen as the end of studying for nurses. They have to remain professionally and academically competent in their career through Continuing Nursing Education (CNE). Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital commenced a credit system of CNE in 1997. It not only aims at coordinating, recommending, and accrediting different training programs, but also at providing a reporting mechanism for the CNE activities of all nursing staff in the hospital. By the end of a year, every nurse will have an individual report of his or her CNE credit achievement.

The CNE credit system has been implemented for four years and the majority of nursing staff support the system. The percentage of staff fulfilling the CNE requirement, which is 15 credit points per year, has risen from 70% to 85%. Nursing staff have also shown appreciation of an annual record of their CNE achievement as it provides a kind of recognition of their professional activities.

Implementation of the CNE Credit System

The Central Nursing Division (CND) has responsibility for monitoring the CNE Credit System with the support, consultation and promotion from DOMs and WMs in clinical setting. The mechanism used for the system is illustrated below:

  1. Setting Criteria for Granting CNE Credit Points

    A nursing policy about the CNE Credit System was endorsed by the nursing management prior to the formal implementation after setting up criteria for granting CNE credit points, ways of accreditation, recording and reporting. It is recommended that all qualified staff acquire 15 CNE credit points annually. In general, one CNE point is allocated for an hour's learning activity, which may consist of a talk, workshop, seminar and conference, related to patient care issues and/or nursing professional development.

  2. Organization of CNE Programs

    All training programs, both those organized by our hospital as well as other institutions will be accredited by CND and the allocated CNE credit points will be posted in the monthly bulletin.

  3. Record of CNE Credit Point

    For all learning activities organized within the Hospital Authority and coordinated by CND, the responsibility for the data entry of participants will be undertaken by the CND. For self-arranged learning activities, the respective staff are required to report the activity to their ward managers to obtain accreditation. Ward managers will then compile the data and send it to CND office for data collection every half-year. This recording procedure for the frontline staff is simple and the accuracy of CNE record appears relatively high.

    In order to streamline the administrative work an "all-in-one" EXCEL program format is used in all CNE programs and includes promotion activities, data entry and record reporting. A CNE record procedure flow chart was developed for the reference of staff to facilitate the recording process.

Continuous Evaluation of the CNE Credit System

Following the implementation of the CNE credit system, the CND has undertaken an annual review of the feasibility and applicability of the system and findings have been reported in the Training and Development Annual Report. The result was encouraging as it showed a progressive increase in staff's acquisition of CNE credit points.

During the whole process, incentives such as arrangement of duty, granting of sponsorship, promotion of relevant programs, showing recognition and appreciation of staffs' efforts have been used. It is hoped that all nursing staff will actively participate in obtaining CNE credit points as an example of professional and personal achievement and get used of the system before it becomes a mandatory requirement from the Nursing Council of Hong Kong.