DOH develops nurse certification program

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH) has come up with the Nurse Certification Program (NCP) to standardize and establish competency standards for nurses.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona said the program – the “first of its kind in DOH history” – was developed in coordination with the agency’s specialty hospitals and selected DOH-retained teaching hospitals.

“The program is a DOH-initiated and a supervised system of developing and certifying nurses based on a set of standard of competencies in both basic and specialty areas,” Ona said.

Under the program, a certification of competency for a particular level will be awarded to a candidate when all performance standards are demonstrated with consistency. The level of progression is 1-2 for general nursing while level 3-5 is for specialty nursing.

Ona said all registered nurses are qualified to join the program.

“Self-assessment tools can be downloaded from the DOH website. Foreign nurses, on the other hand, can also avail of the program provided they first secure a special temporary permit from the Professional Regulation Commission,” he said.

The NCP provides a framework for looking at the higher performance level of nurses within a particular, general or specialty area, using specific behaviors identified for each level and area as performance standards.

The program also provides the mechanism for progressing from one level of expertise to another, through a guided and evidence-based assessment process.