Guidelines for Qualifications of Neurodiagnostic Personnel: A Joint Position Statement of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society, the American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine, the American Society of Neurophysiological Monitoring, and ASET – The Neurodiagnostic Society

ABSTRACT

The Guidelines for Qualifications of Neurodiagnostic Personnel (QNP) document has been created through the collaboration of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society (ACNS), the American Society of Neurophysiological Monitoring (ASNM), the American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM), and ASET – The Neurodiagnostic Society (ASET). The quality of patient care is optimized when neurophysiological procedures are performed and interpreted by appropriately trained and qualified practitioners at every level. These Societies recognize that Neurodiagnostics is a large field with practitioners who have entered the field through a variety of training paths. This document suggests job titles, associated job responsibilities, and the recommended levels of education, certification, experience, and ongoing education appropriate for each job. This is important because of the growth and development of standardized training programs, board certifications, and continuing education in recent years. This document matches training, education, and credentials to the various tasks required for performing and interpreting Neurodiagnostic procedures. This document does not intend to restrict the practice of those already working in Neurodiagnostics. It represents recommendations of these Societies with the understanding that federal, state, and local regulations, as well as individual hospital bylaws, supersede these recommendations. As Neurodiagnostics is a growing and dynamic field, we fully intend this document to change over time.

KEY WORDS:

• Clinical neurophysiology
• electrodiagnostic
• intraoperative monitoring
• neurodiagnostic credentials
• neurodiagnostic personnel
• neurodiagnostics

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All abbreviations and corresponding definitions are found in Table 1.

Table 1. Abbreviations and corresponding definitions.

Table 2. Overview of technologist positions.

Table 3. Supervision levels in neurodiagnostics.

2. The registries for EEG and EP, and the certifications for IONM, LTM, ANS testing, and MEG are registered by ABRET – Neurodiagnostic Credentialing and Accreditation as: R. EEG T.®, R. EP T.®, CNIM®, CLTM®, CAP®, and CMEG®.

3. Grandfather clause: Any ND technologist practicing in the ND field prior to December 31, 2021, shall be considered grandfathered in terms of ND education, and therefore shall be deemed that the existing ND education requirement as outlined in Section 3 has been met (Table 2).

4. Grandfather clause: Technologists who do not hold a bachelor’s degree or higher and who meet all the requirements of an NCS Specialist I may be considered for NCS Specialist II if they have a minimum of ten (10) years of continuous experience in performing NCS, a minimum of eight (8) years as a CNCT or R.NCS.T., a minimum of three (3) faculty engagements in the NCS field, and at least two (2) reference letters from ABEM physicians (Table 2).

5. All abbreviations and corresponding definitions are found in Table 1.

6. Grandfather clause: Ph.D. neurophysiologists with a minimum of twenty (20) years’ experience in IONM are not required to hold the D.ABNM.

7. All abbreviations and corresponding definitions are found in Table 1.