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The Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing is the national accrediting body for nursing education in Canada. In 1987, the organization accredited its first undergraduate program, and since then, the accreditation of nursing education programs in Canada has become a core function of CASN; it reviews over a dozen schools every year. In 2022, CASN extended its accreditation program to include reviews of nurse practitioner master’s in nursing programs.
Accreditation promotes excellence and is recognized worldwide as an important, objective method to assess professional education programs. It identifies strengths and opportunities for improvement that can guide decision making. The process provides administrators and faculty with information regarding areas that require development, modification, and/or resources.
The program of accreditation sets forth overarching quality dimensions, standards, descriptors, and key elements against which NP programs are assessed while also incorporating flexibility regarding the organizational structure and curriculum. This flexibility enables programs to be autonomous in their academic perspectives and responsive to their regional, social, professional, and institutional contexts.
The CASN Accreditation Program is built on the original philosophy and approach of previous programs. It undergoes regular review and enhancement. This is consistent with a constant quality improvement approach. Recent changes to the accreditation program accommodate evolution of distance education, collaborative partnerships, virtual reviews, and new program models within a new framework and with expanded standards. The following table identifies some of CASN Accreditation’s milestone dates.
The NP-CASN Accreditation Bureau (NP-CAB) is an independent decision-making body for CASN’s accreditation reviews. It is composed of experienced NP nursing faculty from across the country. For more information on our accreditation program, please contact Layal Bou Abdo <lbou-abdo@casn.ca>.