How to Fulfill Your Certification Needs at ONS Congress®
ONS Congress® is your opportunity to network and make one-on-one connections with your peers, learn from their research and clinical experiences, and empower your own advancements in the field. At ONS Congress, you’ll have plenty of ways to cultivate your professional development and accumulate contact hours and points to fulfill your certification needs.
Most Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation (ONCC) credentials have three renewal options: practice hours and professional development (points), practice hours and successful testing, and points and successful testing. Each time you renew your certification through professional development points, you’ll take an assessment before earning points for your next renewal.
You can earn points for renewal by completing professional development activities such as educational conferences like ONS Congress. Attendees can earn renewal points by attending a plethora of sessions in San Antonio.
Here’s what you’ll need for your professional development:
- Start with your test score or assessment results report, both of which include the list of subjects in which you may earn points for certification renewal.
- If you passed a certification test, your test score report identifies the number of points you need for renewal and the subject areas.
- If you’ve taken your assessment, your assessment results report shows the number of points you need for renewal and the subject areas.
- If you are AOCN®, AOCNS®, or CPON® certified, you will record your points for renewal in LearningBuilder, even though you weren’t required to take the assessment.
Have you been authorized to take the assessment but haven’t done so? Remember that you can’t earn points for renewal until you take your assessment. If you’re eligible to take the assessment, be sure you do it before ONS Congress starts so you can use the NCPD you earn for your certification renewal. Contact ONCC for more information.
Once you know the subject areas in which you need to earn points for certification renewal, you can find eligible sessions using the schedule on the ONS Congress website or app, which will be available for download in April. Filter the sessions by Individual Learning Needs Assessment (ILNA) categories, and plan ahead by making a list of the sessions you need to attend.
If you have any questions about certification, contact oncc@oncc.org or visit ONCC Certification Central at ONS Congress to meet with ONCC staff. If you’re not yet registered, do so by March 9 to save hundreds with early-bird pricing. We hope to see you there!