Looking for continuing education credit to maintain your state license, a clinical certification, or for increased self-improvement? Need staff development programs?
HPNA offers a series of monthly educational Web/teleconferences each Wednesday, featuring a variety of hospice and palliative care topics. Web/ teleconferences are offered for three different levels of nursing including advanced practice nurses (APN), clinical nursing, and nursing assistants.
In response to HPNA members' requests for continuing education, HPNA began monthly RN Web/teleconferences in January of 2002. Based on the success of these creative inservices and professional education, HPNA added APN and nursing assistant Web/teleconference this past winter. Each program meets the needs of the specific healthcare provider while challenging participants with current, evidence-based information presented by hospice and palliative nursing leaders.
Advance practice nursing topics have included Reimbursement, Palliative Sedation, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Palliative Care Issues. Pharmacology content has been included in the APN Web/teleconferences at the request of our APN members.
Clinical topics for RNs have included Beginning and Advanced Pain Management, Managing Dyspnea, and Taking the Pulse of Palliative Care in Advanced Heart Failure.
Many Ways to Access Teleconference Materials
For APNs, RNs, and LP/VNs
Work schedules and busy lives prevent many nurses from accessing continuing education. HPNA has made it easy through our Web site (http://www.hpna.org) to access previously aired APN and RN Web/teleconferences online and/or on CD-ROM:
* Transcripts of the Web/teleconferences are available at the Web site and can be read online or printed.
* The entire previously aired Web/conference is available on CD-ROM, which includes the audio and PowerPoint slides and the transcript. The audio from the CD-ROM will play on many CD players for those who like to listen to continuing education in their vehicles.
* CEs are provided for a small fee.
For Nursing Assistants
Many hospices register for the nursing assistant teleconferences so their staff can attend the half-hour programs each month. These teleconferences have been very popular attracting nearly 100 listeners monthly. Hospices unable to participate in the teleconference can purchase the previously aired nursing assistant teleconference on CD-ROM. The CD ROMs:
* provide agencies an opportunity to build a library of hospice and palliative care programs, giving many more nursing assistants access to the continuing education, and
* include the audio from the teleconference along with the handout, transcript, and a printable certificate of participation.
For further information or to register for a teleconference, call the HPNA National Office at (412) 787-9301. CD-ROMs are available for $30 and can be ordered online or by calling the National Office. The costs for the Web/conferences are as follows: clinical nursing: $15 for HPNA members/$25 for nonmembers; APNs: $20 for HPNA members/$30 for nonmembers; nursing assistants: $30 per site.