Palm vein recognition works by scanning the veins inside of your hand and creating a digital template that represents the nurses vein pattern. To use the system, the nurses places a hand on the device that holds the sensor which records information from the pattern of the nurses palm veins on a digital template. Palm vein patterns are unique to each individual – even identical twins have different patterns.
The nurse will have palm vein patterns (and fingerprints) recorded when the nurse arrive at the testing center to check-in for your exam. Your pattern will be matched when you return to the testing room after a break. The palm vein patterns of the nurse will also be compared with those of other candidates to allow Pearson VUE to find nurses or people who may have tested under multiple names or identities. When the reader scans the nurses palm, the information about the nurses vein patterns is stored as a digital template. After the nurse finishes taking the exam, the template is sent via encrypted transmission with the nurses’ test results to Pearson VUE. The vein pattern of the nurse template is stored separately from other information about the nurse in the system.
All NCLEX nurse candidates have to provide a digital fingerprint and have their palm vein scanned. These steps are being done to ensure the security of the NCLEX examination and give boards of nursing a method to verify their nurse candidates. As the palm vein system is phased in, nurse test-takers should plan on an extra 15 to 30 seconds for the check-in process.
