CNE Accreditation

The Dartmouth Health Nursing Continuing Education Council (NCEC) provides Live and Enduring Continuing Nursing Education (CNE) activities for nurses and health care professionals throughout New England.

A CNE Live activity is an event that must be attended in person, or in real-time via the internet, in order to obtain credit.

Enduring materials are items such as books, recorded events, or other electronic media that when reviewed constitutes the completion of a designated value of CNE contact hours. These items can be studied at the learner's pace.

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) / American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) has implemented some changes that must be in effect by January 1, 2022. Please review these recent changes (PDF).

Please note: If you would like to offer a CNE program, an NCEC Nurse Planner must be actively involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the continuing education activity. The NCEC Nurse Planner is knowledgeable of the CNE process and is responsible for adherence to the ANCC criteria. See NCEC Members and Contact Information.

In order to budget properly to cover educational costs that are in excess of any tuition, grant, exhibit or other income, all continuing education activities’ Activity Directors and Nurse Planners are asked to submit budgets to the CNE office no later than March 1st of each year for all activities that will take place the following fiscal year, particularly for those programs that may not present a balanced budget. This time period coincides with the number of months necessary to plan, execute and accredit a continuing education activity properly. Repeat activities can send the previous year’s final accounting with any updates noted.

The Dartmouth Health Nursing Continuing Education Council is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Nursing contact hours are awarded for educational activities that meet American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) criteria for CNE. That is defined as "learning activities intended to build upon the educational and experiential bases of the professional RN for the enhancement of practice, education, administration, research, or theory development, to the end of improving the health of the public and RNs’ pursuit of their professional career goals." (2015 ANCC Primary Accreditation Provider Application Manual)

Planning committees must have a minimum of a NCEC Nurse Planner and one additional nurse to plan each educational activity. The NCEC Nurse Planner is knowledgeable of the CNE process and is responsible for adherence to the ANCC criteria. One additional nurse needs to have appropriate subject matter expertise for the educational activity being offered.

If you would like to offer CME credit as well, please review the CME accreditation requirements.

Pre-activity documents to receive accredited contact hours

Required pre-activity documents

Forms

Promotion of learning activities

If planning to utilize the CLPD marketing services, you do not need to submit a draft of promotion materials as the CME/CNE office will ensure all marketing materials are accurate and in compliance.

If you are producing your own marketing materials and you want to announce the number of awarded contact hours the activity will carry, you must submit any promotional items at least one month prior to when you wish to distribute your marketing materials for review.

Note: Do not send any advertising of your activity with a mention of nursing accreditation applied for or pending.

Planning a repeat CNE activity

Provider-directed

  • A program may be repeated if it is unchanged in content and continues to reflect current practice. Programs that address clinical practice/direct patient care will be reviewed annually by a content expert. Provider-directed programs that have been accredited for two years will not be repeated.
  • The only changes permitted when offering a repeat program are:
    • Date
    • Location
    • Speaker (who has appropriate content expertise)
    • Signed Conflict of Interest form for any new faculty or existing faculty (annually)
    • Time
    • If based on evaluation results, the time frame of an activity is changed, the change is considered a reflection of the provider’s actions in response to evaluation data, and therefore, the program may still be repeated.*
  • If a program is being repeated, the original file must be supplemented prior to the program to reflect the change:
    • Brochure/Flyer (Marketing materials must include the activity’s learning outcome statement and accreditation statement)
    • Plan of the day/Agenda
    • Evaluation form (if not using CLPD services)
    • Commercial Support agreement(s) (if applicable)
  • If any one of the following is changed from the original activity, the program will not be considered a repeat program. The planning process must begin and a new file will be created.
    • Needs assessment
    • Gap in knowledge, skills
    • Learning outcome
    • Content
    • Teaching/learning methodology
    • Number of contact hours (unless change results from review of prior program evaluations).*

Learner-paced (enduring material)

  • All enduring materials that address clinical practice/direct patient care will be reviewed annually by a content expert. All other enduring materials will be reviewed after two years by a nurse planner.
  • Enduring materials that have been accredited for three years will not be repeated.

Learner-directed (independent study)

  • Learner-Directed activities are engaged in by only one individual, who with or without the help of others, has identified personal learning needs and developed a plan for continuing nursing education that is independent in nature; therefore, learner-directed activities will not be repeated.

Continuing nursing education links