State seeks external review of nurse licensing procedures

The state is seeking outside help to ascertain what went wrong when it granted nursing licenses to 15 people with fraudulent credentials.

The Department of Public Health is developing plans to work with the National Council of State Boards of Nursing on analyzing policies and procedures related to nurse licensing.

The review could begin in December or January, according to Heather Cambra, complaint resolution coordinator for the Board of Registration in Nursing, which learned about the plan Wednesday. The national council is a not-for-profit organization that works with state nursing boards on shared concerns.

The imposters, discovered in August, took advantage of "reciprocity," a provision that lets applicants obtain a Massachusetts license by submitting a license from another state. The 15 submitted falsified licenses from other states. Massachusetts accepted the fake licenses as evidence the applicant had graduated from an accredited nursing school and passed the nurse qualifying exam.

But only one had passed the exam, and some claimed to have graduated from colleges with no record of them.

Nevertheless, at least nine went on to get jobs as nurses in Massachusetts, mostly in nursing homes. They worked undetected for several months. State officials said they had found no evidence of patient harm. None of the imposters is currently practicing, state officials said.

Cambra also told the board that an audit of 21,144 licenses awarded on reciprocity since 2010 had not found other fraud cases. The state is checking all such applications from 1995 through 2009, she said.