Integrated assessments

One assessment. Three roles. Many career path options.

Qualified nurses are in high demand across Canada. To meet this increasing need, Inspire Global Assessments has developed an innovative 3-in-1 competency assessment that evaluates a candidate’s competence in up to three health-care roles (registered nursing, practical nursing, and care support) at one time.

This integrated approach helps to streamline the registration process and accelerate the integration of competent health-care professionals into the workforce.

With the support of the British Columbia and New Brunswick governments, we launched a new version of this 3-in-1 assessment in early 2024 — our first-ever bilingual assessment, which is offered in French in New Brunswick.

Refined decision-making for a strong workforce

Strengths & Gaps

Inspire Global Assessments’ integrated competency assessment is a “profiling assessment”— there is no pass or fail. Our assessment identifies a candidate’s overall level of competence, as well as strengths gaps in several nursing practice areas.

This approach to assessment helps candidates understand their specific learning needs and identify the profession best suited to their current abilities.

Streamline & Enhance

The approach gives regulators confidence in a candidate’s readiness to practise safely and competently in the Canadian health-care system.

The story of how our integrated assessment came to be

Developing innovative multi-profession assessments is at the core of Inspire Global Assessments’ mandate and history.

When our organization was born in 2016, Inspire Global Assessments (then called Nursing Community Assessment Service) was asked to assess the feasibility of having one integrated competency assessment that could validly measure the competencies required to practise safely as a Registered Nurse (RN), Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN), Healthcare Assistant (HCA), and Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN).

Following extensive research and engagement that involved more than a hundred stakeholders and subject matter experts in the regulatory, nursing, education, and measurement fields, Inspire Global Assessments laid the groundwork for a single integrated assessment that could assess a candidate’s competence in the role of an RN, LPN or HCA. Psychiatric nursing, on the other hand, would continue to be assessed separately due to the unique aspects of this practice.

To support the delivery of Inspire Global Assessments’ integrated assessment, we acquired a new delivery platform that provides:

  • Increased accessibility with remote proctoring
  • Enhanced computer-based question types
  • Concurrent tablet-based scoring during simulation lab assessments
  • Integrated reporting
  • A richer user experience
  • Shorter turnaround times for assessing and reporting
  • Expansion capabilities to support:
    • additional jurisdictions and partner regulators,
    • more types of organizations that we can serve,
    • an increase in the number of assessment centres, and
    • an increase in applicant and assessment-taker volumes.