NCSBN shows national nursing education dashboard to BRN committee, previews state dashboards

Nancy Spector, director of nursing education policy at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), presented the National Nursing Education Database and dashboard work to the BRN Nurse Practice Committee.

Spector said NCSBN has collected evidence‑based quality indicators since 2020 and now provides an aggregate national dashboard that, when populated, will include data from roughly 37 states and more than 2,000 programs representing nearly 300,000 students. She described dashboard features: NCLEX pass‑rate comparisons (public/private/for‑profit), faculty metrics (full‑time faculty share), clinical‑hours distributions and student capacity/graduation funnels that can be filtered by degree, geography and ownership. Spector said state‑level program dashboards (for boards) are being developed and that an initial state dashboard rollout is targeted for April.

Committee members asked why some states have not participated; Spector cited turnover at boards and a reluctance in some places to surface program‑level detail. Melby noted BRN staff will work with NCSBN to share state BRN data once logistics are arranged. Spector said the aggregate public dashboard is available, and the state‑level dashboards will be accessible to boards with secure access.

Spector said the database provides a new resource for policymakers and regulators: “There is no data like that out there in nursing education.” The committee took the presentation as information only.

Ending: Staff will coordinate with NCSBN to share BRN program data and follow up on secure access to state dashboards.