NHA Releases 'Credentials That Work' Healthcare Credential Framework

What makes a healthcare credential valuable to employers and workers?

The National HealthcareerAssociation (NHA), an Ascend Learning brand, has released Credentials That Work: Delivering Quality and Real Economic Opportunity in the Healthcare Workforce, a framework to help policymakers, healthcare employers, and educators evaluate the quality and workforce value of healthcare credentials.

The framework addresses a growing focus on identifying credentials that strengthen healthcare talent pipelines, connect learners with in-demand jobs, and support long-term economic mobility. NHA recommends prioritizing credentials that are accredited, developed with employer input, grounded in rigorous standards, and validated with data tied to outcomes such as employment, job performance and career mobility.

What defines a high-quality healthcare credential?

• Trusted: Externally validated, technically rigorous, and recognized as reliable indicators of job readiness and workforce competence.

• Within reach: Affordable, flexible, and accessible through pathways including Career and Technical Education (CTE), dual enrollment, employer-sponsored training, apprenticeships and early-college models.

• Career-building: Stackable and portable across employers and settings, while opening opportunities for additional education and new roles and responsibilities.

• Employer-validated: Informed by employer needs to provide consistent, trusted measures of competency and support greater operational efficiency for healthcare employers.

The framework's central idea is simple: the credentials that matter most are those learners can earn, employers can trust, and workers can build careers on.

Read the full NHA news release and learn more about the Credentials That Work framework.