Registered nursing association refines focus and rebrands
The past two years have seen many changes worldwide in the health care profession. Many of these have happened as the result of COVID-19, but one transformation that took place in Saskatchewan happened during the pandemic coincidentally. The Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association (SRNA), after having served as a regulator and the association for Saskatchewan Registered Nurses (RN), refined its mandate, and transformed its branding and its name.
Now known as the College of Registered Nurses of Saskatchewan (CRNS), the organization will no longer undertake advocacy, but will concentrate solely on protecting the public through the regulation of the registered nursing profession in Saskatchewan.
“We do that by ensuring there are safe, competent and ethical registered nurses,” said CRNS Executive Director Cindy Smith, RN. “Our role is to ensure that all individuals that are seeking entry into the field and maintaining being registered are qualified; they're competent and they are ethical professionals.”
The CRNS has several safeguards in place to verify that all nurses entering the profession are appropriate for what Smith refers to as, “the call to care.” These include establishing the entry level-competencies and standards of practice required of all RNS, approving the nursing education programs of Saskatchewan nursing education institutions to help students attain these competencies, and determining how to test prospective RNS to ensure that they meet the requirements.
“We approve nursing education programs and our entrylevel competencies have to be the foundation of the curriculum in these programs,” said Smith. “But we don't do a lot of education ourselves specifically for nursing students other than in terms of sharing our practice resources and documents.”
There are two programs to prepare students to become registered nurses in Saskatchewan: the University of Saskatchewan Bachelor of Science in Nursing and the University of Regina/ Saskatchewan Polytechnic Collaborative Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Once RNS have entered the profession, the CRNS carries on its work to provide the best possible outcome for the public by ensuring that its members continue to be suitable for practice. It safeguards quality registered nursing care by promoting good practice and striving to prevent poor practice by helping nurses to uphold standards and by finding ways to help them improve.
“We support RN registrants to meet their practice standards and we offer consultations and some education around practice standards and competencies. We have to intervene when members' practices don't meet the standards,” said Smith. “That would be through our complaints and investigation process. If an employer, a patient or a colleague complains about a member's practice, we are obligated to investigate and then potentially refer to the discipline committee.”
She said that every action of the CRNS is undertaken with the best interests of the public in mind. “What we hope our new brand will signify is that we are here to balance regulation and do that with compassion and also to support our dedicated Registered Nurses to act in the best interest of the people of Saskatchewan,” she said. “We try to balance regulation with compassion.”
The CRNS'S new logo is comprised of an “R” with an underscore, and an “N” that has the look of being hand-drawn alongside the words “College of Registered Nurses of Saskatchewan.” She said that the black R with an underscore represents that, as a regulator, the CRNS is the bridge between the public and RNS, adding, “We are always here to uphold the standards, so together, the two parts create a real unified, recognizable logo.”
She said the fact that the N looks hand-drawn is appropriate, given the many hand-drawn messages that nurses and others in the health care profession received in recognition of their selfless work during the alarming, early stages of the pandemic. It can appear in different colours, representing the diversity of the nearly 14,000 nurses it represents. In addition to RNS, the College's members include Registered Nurses with Additional Authorized Practice [RN(AAP)] and Nurse Practitioners (NP), all of whom work in a wide variety of settings and roles.
This includes fields such as education, administration, research, public health and occupational health and safety. They may work in settings such as hospitals, homecare, long-term care homes, community agencies, community clinics, workplaces and schools.
While the College's mandate no longer includes advocacy, it still strives to keep the public informed with its quarterly digital digest, The Heartbeat. “It was specifically developed to connect with the public,” said Smith. “The purpose is to break down our work in an easily-digestible way and communicate key events and news.”
Members of the public may sign up to receive the newsletter by visiting