BCEN’s Pediatric Emergency Nursing Certification is Reaccredited by ABSNC
OAK BROOK, IL (May 5, 2025) – The Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing (BCEN), the benchmark for nursing specialty certification across the emergency spectrum, today announced that its Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse (CPEN) certification program has once again been reaccredited by the Accreditation Board for Specialty Nursing Certification (ABSNC), with reaccreditation effective May 1.
The CPEN is a national board certification earned by registered nurses (RNs) who demonstrate knowledge and clinical judgment in all aspects of pediatric emergency care, including providing direct care, healthcare facilitation, education, and advocacy for pediatric emergency patients and their families.
Today, there are over 5,600 CPENs delivering expert pediatric emergency care in mixed and pediatric emergency departments, children’s hospitals, trauma centers, and prehospital and critical care transport settings. Introduced in January 2009, the CPEN certification program has been Magnet-accepted since February 2009, was initially accredited by ABSNC in May 2015, and was reaccredited in May 2020.
“CPEN-certified RNs bring the complete range of pediatric emergency nursing knowledge and expertise to emergency care teams and the pediatric patients and families they care for,” said BCEN Director of Certification and Accreditation Amy Grand, MSN, RN, ICE-CCP. “From birth through adolescence, pediatric patients have unique and developmentally distinct medical needs that should inform clinical decision-making when providing emergency services.”
“Reaccreditation not only demonstrates through a rigorous, every-five-year process that the CPEN certification program continues to meet or exceed the highest industry standards,” noted Grand, “it also serves as an independent indicator to nurses, consumers and healthcare organizations of the consistent quality of both the CPEN credential and the credentialing body—in this case, BCEN.”
ABSNC’s announcement about CPEN reaccreditation is available here. For facts and statistics about pediatric emergency care and more on the CPEN, read Pediatric Emergency Excellence: The CPEN.
About ABSNC Accreditation
Accreditation provides an impartial third-party validation that a certification program has met recognized national industry standards for the development, implementation and maintenance of that program. Specifically, ABSNC accreditation is a comprehensive and rigorous process validating that a nursing specialty certification program adheres to ABSNC’s 18 accreditation standards including organizational autonomy, basis in a body of research-based knowledge, nondiscrimination, test development, validity, reliability, test administration, test security, fairness of passing score, recertification, confidentiality, and appeals. ABSNC is the only accrediting body specifically for nursing specialty certification.
About BCEN
Founded in 1980, the independent, not-for-profit Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing (BCEN®) offers robust nursing specialty certification programs fostering empowered nurses across the emergency spectrum who contribute noticeably to patient care, safety and outcomes. Over 60,000 BCEN credentials are held by registered nurses (RNs) who specialize in emergency, pediatric emergency, flight, critical care ground transport, trauma, and burn nursing. BCEN offers the Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN®), Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse (CPEN®), Certified Flight Registered Nurse (CFRN®), Certified Transport Registered Nurse (CTRN®), Trauma Certified Registered Nurse (TCRN®), and Certified Burn
Registered Nurse (CBRN). The CEN, CPEN, CFRN, CTRN and TCRN certification programs are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Specialty Nursing Certification (ABSNC) and are ANCC Magnet-accepted. Learn more at bcen.org.
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CONTACT: Maris Hammons, BCEN Director of Marketing & Communications | mhammons@bcen.org | 630-339-4530
