Leveraging new technology to deliver responsive nursing and midwifery regulation

These are times of both change and challenge, for the health sector and for NMBI, and the way in which we respond will define our future, writes Sheila McClelland, the CEO of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI).

At NMBI we are leveraging new technology to continue our important work as a regulator, in the face of a global pandemic, while also progressing our digitisation and modernisation agenda to adapt to the evolving needs of the health sector. As we hopefully emerge from the worst of the pandemic it is time to build on what we have done best during the height of the crisis, and we are now using new technologies and better ways of working to create a more agile and responsive regulator.

The role of NMBI

As the regulator for nurses and midwives in Ireland, our mission is to protect the public and the integrity of the professions of nursing and midwifery.

We focus on three areas specifically:

• Publication and maintenance of the Register of Nurses and Midwives and the Candidate Register;
• Education standards and requirements; and
• Complaints about the practice or behaviour of a nurse or midwife.

Using technology to modernise

NMBI is on a journey to provide a more modern, responsive, and agile model of service provision and regulation. Technology is central to this journey, and I believe it is important to embrace it and use it to drive positive change and allow us to work better together in new ways.

Fitness to practise

As the regulator, NMBI is legally responsible for considering complaints against nurses and midwives who practise in Ireland, to ensure the protection of the public and the safeguarding of confidence in the nursing and midwifery professions. The pandemic brought a halt to the running of onsite/in-person inquiries. Our fitness to practise team responded quickly. Online inquiry solutions were identified, tested, and rolled out, after engaging with those involved. Since December 2020, 17 inquiries have concluded in online or in hybrid form, over 37 inquiry days.

This change, using new technology, was born out of necessity but has proved beneficial. Now that restrictions have eased, we are keeping the best of what we created to help improve the way we work. A hybrid approach is being taken to inquiries, with some participants physically present and others participating online.

Education

Our education team is using new technology to evolve the way they work and ensure they are more agile, carrying out virtual site inspections. These are proving successful, and more are planned.

Registration

New technology is also driving change in our registration process. In the past year we have broken new ground with the launch of our digital platform MyNMBI. We were the first healthcare regulator to digitise all of our registration processes, allowing registrants to avail of a range of services online and leading to the collection of better data. As with all new technology there was a bedding-in period and there were some user-experience issues at the outset of this new system, but our teams worked hard to address these and to ensure that we learned from them. I am confident that over time the benefit of digitisation will significantly outweigh the teething problems experienced.

NMBI is on a journey to becoming a more efficient and effective regulator and new technology is enabling us to better deliver on our mandate of upholding the high standards of nursing and midwifery in Ireland and ensuring public safety.

E: communications@nmbi.ie
W: www.nmbi.ie