CGFNS International, Inc. is the world’s largest credential evaluation and skills qualification organization for nurses and other health professionals with experience dating to its inception in 1977 as the Commission for Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools. Since that time, more than 2 million foreign-educated nurses have passed through the gateway provided by CGFNS to practice in the United States, and now, in alliance with the Nursing Council of New Zealand, in the Pacific Rim.

Because of its longstanding presence in the field and its commitment to inform the current condition of nursing, CGFNS was asked by the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) to contribute workforce data on the role of foreign-educated nurses in the healthcare system to the World Health Organization’s State of the World’s Nursing report.

The report, released on World Health Day, underscores the importance of nursing in patient care at the bedside but also the psychosocial support of the recovering patient, changes in the environment necessary to maintain health, and aid needed by the patient’s family. The world is currently experiencing a shortage of nurses, heightened now by the worldwide response to the spread of the novel coronavirus, covid-19.

CGFNS in Consultative Status with the UN

CGFNS International, Inc., as the world’s largest credential evaluation organization, plays a critical role in the field of nurse migration. At a time when an estimated 1 in 10 U.S. nurses and 1 in 8 nurses of the world are migrants, CGFNS’ work takes on renewed importance.

To that end, CGFNS is an NGO in consultative status with the United Nations and a member of CoNGO, the important commission heading a global community of informed and committed NGOs helping the UN to create a better world.

CGFNS is proud to be a co-sponsor of the Civil Society Briefing, held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, on World Health Day, April 7. Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees, Dean of the University of Minnesota School of Nursing Connie Delaney, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, FNAP, briefed the conference.