The American Nurses Credentialing Center is the credentialing subsidiary of the American Nurses Association, established in 1990. It does three separate jobs that are frequently confused with one another: it certifies individual nurses, it recognises organisations, and it accredits programmes.
Certifying individuals
The centre awards specialty certifications across a wide range of practice areas, from medical-surgical and psychiatric-mental health nursing to informatics and nursing professional development, along with certifications for several advanced practice roles.
Certification is not licensure. A licence is compulsory state authority to practise at all; certification is voluntary private recognition that a nurse has met a standard beyond it, and it does not expand what a nurse may legally do. The exception is the advanced practice tier, where national certification has been pulled into the regulatory structure and functions as a condition of licensure. See nursing specialties and levels of nursing.
Recognising organisations
Two programmes recognise employers rather than nurses.
Magnet recognition is awarded to health care organisations for the quality of their nursing environment, on a four-year cycle, and is the credential most often named in hospital recruitment advertising. See Magnet recognition.
Pathway to Excellence recognises a positive practice environment on a different and less demanding basis, with a version for long-term care. It is often the route taken by smaller organisations for which the Magnet requirements, including the nurse-sensitive outcome data and the leadership degree requirements, are out of reach.
Both are voluntary, both are paid for by the applicant, and both are surveyed.
Accrediting programmes
The centre accredits organisations that provide continuing nursing education, transition to practice programmes, and fellowships for advanced practice providers. This is why a continuing education certificate usually names an accreditor: it is the accreditation, not the provider's own claim, that makes the hours count for licence renewal in most states.
Note that nurse residency programmes can be accredited either here or by the commission attached to the association of nursing colleges, which uses its own standards. See nurse residency programs.
Why the structure matters
Because one organisation sits on all three sides, its recommendations and its products point in the same direction. A hospital pursuing Magnet recognition has reason to employ more certified nurses and to buy accredited education, all of which flow through the same body. That is not a scandal, and it is a conflict worth naming when reading its research on the value of certification or designation.
The evidence on both certification and Magnet status is genuinely positive and genuinely confounded, because the organisations and individuals who pursue them differ in other ways that also improve outcomes.
Related
- Nursing organizations
- American Nurses Association
- Magnet recognition
- Nursing specialties
- Nurse residency programs
Sources
- About ANCC. American Nurses Credentialing Center, on certification, Magnet, Pathway to Excellence and accreditation. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- Magnet Recognition Program. American Nurses Credentialing Center. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- ANA history. American Nurses Association, for the 1990 establishment of the credentialing centre. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- Standards for Accreditation of Entry-to-Practice Nurse Residency Programs. Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, for the alternative residency accreditation route. Accessed September 9, 2026.