Nurses and other healthcare providers that are credentialed by the Maryland Board of Nursing may see faster licensing process times as early as this fall.
The Maryland Department of Health says it is in the process of hiring a contractor to create a new system for processing license applications.
The announcement comes as the Board of Nursing is facing its largest backlog in two decades, prompting the Maryland General Assembly to ask Ernst & Young to conduct an independent investigation into the issue.
The new system is planned to be delivered this fall and would consolidate two different systems the board is using now, which causes redundancy.
The new system will also allow applicants to upload documents easier.
“Nurses will be able to see where their application is in the process, and if there are issues with the documentation that they've uploaded, they'll get ping to say you need to provide X or that the application is incomplete,” said MDH Secretary Laura Herrera Scott, during a Wednesday Health and Government Operations Committee hearing.
MDH said it is also making progress in staffing issues and said it will likely raise some of its application fees.
