A Typology of Professional Nurse Regulatory Models and Their Administration

Today, nurses often migrate from one jurisdiction to another and must deal with regulatory regimes. Regulators receive application from persons who may or may not come from a jurisdiction with a similar regulatory model or approach. The lack of scholarly discourse on the wide variety of regulatory models and administrative approaches is problematic. Without an internationally agreed taxonomy that calibrates one system with another, it is difficult and time consuming for regulators and nurses to deal with the complexities of obtaining recognition across jurisdictions. This article describes an analysis of the key issues and proposes a five-point taxonomy of regulatory models and a six-point taxonomy of administrative approaches to their implementation.