While pursuing your RN degree, you will no doubt encounter the acronym CCRN. The initials CCRN stand for critical care registered nurse. This specialty nursing certification serves to verify the specialized knowledge and expertise that nurses in critical care must obtain in order to provide safe, quality care to their patients. There are three separate subspecialties to the CCRN: adult, pediatric, and neonatal.
Qualifying for CCRN Certification
An applicant must hold a current, unrestricted license to practice registered nursing in the United States in order to be eligible to take the CCRN exam. The license must not have any restrictions placed against it that would limit nursing practice in any way. The credentialing board must be notified immediately in the event the license does become restricted in any way. The applicant does not have to have a BSN in order to qualify to sit for the exam. In the two years before application, the candidate must have 1750 hours of direct bedside care of critically ill patients; 875 of these hours must have been accumulated in the year immediately before application. It is also mandatory that the hours be accumulated in facilities based in Canada or the United States, or the equivalent. The total 1750 hours of bedside care must come from a single patient-age population; in other words, all the hours must be in adult, neonatal, or pediatric care. Care hours acquired in critical care before earning a nursing degree do not count toward the required hours for CCRN certification.
The CCRN exam is given by computer on a continued basis at testing sites across the country. Pencil and paper exams are given at selected test sites a few times per year. The test consists of 150 test questions of which 125 are scored. The other 25 questions are test questions that are being validated for possible use on future versions of the exam. There are a total of three hours allotted for completion of the CCRN exam.
Eighty percent of the CCRN exam questions are related to clinical judgment skills which are relative to the age of the patient population for which certification is sought. The other twenty percent of the test relates to caring and ethics and can be relative to patients across the entire lifespan. On the certification website is a free downloadable candidate handbook which contains all eligibility criteria and applications for the test. Also included are outlines of the test content. It would be useful to study the test plan and use it to direct and guide study.
Once the candidate passes the CCRN exam, he or she may use the initials CCRN after their name. The certification is good for a period of three years, after which the candidate must renew their CCRN status either by taking the exam again or by earning continuing educational credits.