Abbreviation BCEN Headquarters Naperville, Illinois Founded 1980 | Formation 1980 Executive Director Sandra Samargis | |
Predecessor Certification Committee, Emergency Nurses Association Board of directors Janie Schumaker, Mary Whelan, Lorie Ledford, Kyle Madigan, Roger Casey, Deena Brecher, Andrew Veitch, Brian Vivona, C. Lynne Grief, Sandra Samargis | ||
The Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing (BCEN) is a not-for-profit corporation, which strives to continually evaluate and upgrade the certification exams for emergency nurses.
History
In August 1979, the Emergency Nurses Association convened the new Certification Committee. This group of six nurses met in New York to formulate what would become the Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN) exam.
By July 1980, BCEN had been formed, and eligibility requirements, test construction, questions, procedures and passing requirements, a candidate handbook, and testing sites had been determined. In total, 902 emergency nurses throughout the United States passed first emergency nursing certification (CEN) examination.
In 1991, BCEN entered into discussions with the National Flight Nurses Association (NFNA), now the Air & Surface Transport Nurses Association (ASTNA), for the potential of developing a certification examination for flight nurses. This led to BCEN developing the Certified Flight Registered Nurse (CFRN) certification.
BCEN and ASTNA jointly funded the Role Delineation Study (RDS), an extensive study of flight and ground transport nursing in 2004. By the end of 2005, the Certified Transport Registered Nurse (CTRN) examination had been developed, and the exam was launched in March 2006.
In 2005, BCEN and the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board (PNCB) agreed to jointly conduct a needs assessment related to the development of a pediatric emergency nursing certification. By the end of 2008, the Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse (CPEN) exam had been developed, and was launched in January 2009.
On October 16, 2014, BCEN announced development of a trauma nursing certification examination, which incorporates the body of knowledge in trauma nursing across the continuum of care. The Trauma Certified Registered Nurse (TCRN) exam content outline was finalized in March 2015, with beta/pilot testing concluding in the fourth quarter of 2015. The TCRN exam is scheduled to become available in February 2016.