BRN executive officer reports strategic-plan progress, continuing-education staffing shortfalls and licensing process improvements

Executive Officer Loretta Melby told the board Feb. 26 that BRN staff have worked with a range of external partners on strategic-plan goals while flagging a continuing-education unit that lacks permanent staff.

Melby outlined recent outreach and collaborations — hospital associations, academic consortia, national boards, academic-practice consortia and workforce agencies — and said the board is developing a regulatory package to codify RN advanced-practice application pathways for certified registered nurse anesthetists and clinical nurse specialists (CRNA/CNS). She described an internal review by a vendor (Horn) of licensing processes and the creation of a “concierge” service to contact applicants with application deficiencies to reduce delays.

Melby said DCA and BRN are working on better out‑of‑state fingerprint processing so applicants can avoid manual hard‑card submissions that add weeks to processing. She also said the board added a public-facing database for education-related board actions to increase transparency about program approvals and remediation.

Asked about continuing-education quality, Melby said the board created a CE and research unit in 2018 but that staffing gaps and recent budget cuts (19 positions cut systemwide) meant the unit has been run by retired annuitants and temporary staff. She said the board continues spot-check audits of CE but has not been able to implement a program of provider audits every five years pending permanent staffing and a legislative budget-change proposal under consideration.

The report was informational; the board did not take action on the strategic-plan update itself during the meeting.