Q&A with Dr. Kate Leslie, NCSBN Center for Regulatory Excellence Grant Recipient

Our study will capture the regulatory responses of specific Canadian and American nursing regulatory bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to analyze the similarities, differences, and patterns in these regulators’ responses. By collecting data at different time points over the two-year study, we will identify how early decisions regarding protecting the public interest were made and will also consider how nursing regulation may be impacted long-term by the pandemic. Regulation is about protecting the public so there are implications for public and patient safety when we think about how regulators respond to a crisis.

Nursing regulators have a mandate to protect the public. Typically, a nursing regulator would meet this mandate by activities like setting entry-to-practice standards, maintaining a register of those who are licensed to practise, and monitoring and enforcing conduct, capacity, and competence in nursing practice. In both Canada and the US, nursing regulation falls to the provinces/territories or states, so regulation looks a little different across each of these jurisdictions.

What we are hoping to do is gain an in-depth understanding of how the nursing regulators that we examine are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, how the public interest is conceptualized during crisis, and what factors are influencing that conceptualization. This will help us understand the roles and responsibilities of professional regulators during a public-health crisis. The end result is hopefully to improve patient and public safety, as well as provide some insight into planning for future public-health crises.

Many of our Faculty of Health Disciplines learners are regulated health professionals and have faced different impacts during COVID-19 in terms of deferred entry-to-practice examinations, changes to continuing competence requirements, or restrictions to mobility across borders. Many of our learners are on the front lines of the pandemic and regulators are being called on to ensure the public has access to the needed workforce while still maintaining public safety.

I am really thrilled that we have the support of the NCSBN Center for Regulatory Excellence grant. It will allow us to hire research assistants as trainees to help us conduct the study and to develop capacity for the next generation of researchers. It will also allow us to engage in some creative knowledge-mobilization activities, so we can extend the reach of the research. It is really thrilling, especially for a Canadian team, to receive this grant and to conduct international research.