This introductory overview of cultural diversity will help enable you to interact with others of diverse cultures and effectively perform your job responsibilities.

The patient interview is the most important part of your exam. Gaining the patient’s perspective and learning more about issues important to them can guide you in developing patient-specific care plans. This course will discuss how to conduct patient-centered interviews. You will learn interviewing methods to effectively elicit the important details about a patient's reason for presenting to the clinic. Information will also be presented on how to approach a challenging patient and how to adapt for several specific patient types.

This course is about harassment in the workplace, including sexual harassment and other types of workplace harassment. It looks at the basic skills needed to deal with situations involving harassment. This course will provide information that will help produce a healthy work environment that is free of harassment. It will also help you understand your role if you encounter harassment in the workplace. The content in this course is applicable to all employees.

The perioperative nurse plays a primary role in the operative process. Knowledge of procedures, appropriate patient assessment, and care management guidelines will positively impact patient outcomes. Patients consider anesthesia to be a major risk of surgery and expect perioperative team members to be their advocates by caring for their pre-, intra-, and post-operative needs and providing safe and effective care. This course discusses anesthetics and adjuvant medications used in the clinical setting, anesthesia-related complications, and the nurse’s role in management of perioperative patients.

Diabetes is not an uncommon condition in today’s healthcare systemthe U.S.. This high-volume condition can be managed very effectively, but diabetes disease management can also become very complicated. How can patients learn to manage their own diabetes? What strategies are most effective in teaching patient self-care? By creating an action plan with their patients, primary care providers can not only help to improve patient outcomes, but they can also empower the patients to take a bigger role in their own their disease management. When patients take on more responsibility for their care, resources (both time and economic) are freed up and can be allocated to other patients or areas of need. However, creating an action plan requires input from both the primary care provider and the patient, and no two plans are likely to be the same. Factors such as finances, living situation, or other social determinants of health must all must be considered when putting together a plan. A patient’s diet may also play a role. In this module, the topics of action plans, the social determinants of health, and nutritional counseling will be explored.

The goal of this course is to provide case/care management, nursing, and social work professionals with information about diabetes management.

This course discusses hypertensive disorders during pregnancy, including pathophysiology, classifications, characteristics, diagnostic criteria, risk factors, management, and prevention. Also covered are the diagnostic criteria used to screen and monitor women with potential preeclampsia, pathophysiologic changes that occur with preeclampsia, the appropriate management of women receiving magnesium sulfate therapy, and the recommended guidelines for administering anti-hypertensive agents.

As a healthcare worker, you are in regular contact with residents, visitors, and coworkers. When harassment or bullying occurs in the workplace, the impact on staff and visitors creates a troubled workplace. Facility operations are also disrupted with long-reaching effects. Workplace violence refers clearly to threats or actual use of physical force against a person in the workplace. In recent years, more healthcare workers have assumed a greater risk of exposure to workplace violence. In this course, you will learn how to spot, prevent, and respond to workplace violence. 

Sepsis is the result of a dysregulated host response to severe infection that can result in systemic inflammation, immune system dysfunction, coagulopathies, multi-organ system failure, and death (Rhodes et al., 2017). The signs and symptoms of sepsis can vary in onset and presentation and depend on many individual patient factors. Early recognition and intervention is key to improving patient outcomes. Nurses are vital in this role as they are readily at the bedside and able to continually assess the patient and communicate changes in patient condition to providers. The goal of this course is to challenge the learner’s ability to identify key risk factors for sepsis and recognize signs and symptoms of early and progressive sepsis. It will also challenge the learner to accurately anticipate management strategies in the treatment of sepsis and sepsis-related complications.

Healthcare professionals often feel unprepared to ask about abuse or to counsel a pregnant woman who is being abused, although they are in a unique position to assess for IPV and to support women who experience it. As such, it is necessary for clinicians to skillfully screen for IPV and offer effective interventions when appropriate.

Social media and other forms of electronic communication allow people to instantly share pictures and messages with anyone, anywhere. But as the opportunities to share information online have increased, so have the challenges for keeping information private.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, was designed to protect individuals’ rights and their personal healthcare information. HIPAA applies to both the storage and transfer of electronic protected health information, so these electronic communications must be handled carefully.

The use of technology has bloomed in the healthcare industry. While technology’s use has improved the delivery and continuity of care, it increases the chance that an unauthorized person will be able to access individuals’ protected health information, or PHI. Therefore, to protect electronic PHI, your organization is required to follow a specific HIPAA rule, known as the Security Rule.

The goal of this course is to describe the Security Rule and ways you can prevent breaches.

Root cause analysis (RCA) is a team approach for investigating adverse events. Rather than calling out individuals who are at fault, its purpose is to identify factors that make adverse events possible. This overview explains some of the commonly used tools for conducting RCA, and why uncovering information gives a detailed understanding of the reason the event happened in the first place and what may prevent it from happening again.

To manage the threat posed by multi-drug-resistant organisms (MDROs), all healthcare workers and individuals must work together. Along with providing a comprehensive look at new and ever-changing MDROs, this course covers disease trends associated with MDROs, the national approach to combat MDROs, leading practices and clinical interventions, and the psychosocial effects of treatment. You will learn prevention measures and methods to control the spread of MDROs in our communities and throughout health care.

Controlled prescription medications, such as opioids, central nervous system depressants, and stimulants, are used to help manage health conditions but are also misused. Because of this, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and state agencies monitor use closely. Practitioners and pharmacies are required to monitor and report use of these substances and make ethical dispensing decisions. Due to many regulations regarding controlled substances, pharmacy technicians should be familiar with warning signs of misuse, signs of fraudulent prescriptions, and laws. They should avoid unnecessary judgment or bias and treat patients with compassion and respect.

Pain management in the emergency department relies heavily on the use of opioid analgesics, which generates risk for patients to develop long term opioid use or an opioid use disorder.  Multimodal analgesia can improve the patient experience and reduce the risks of opioid use if emergency providers approach pain with a more critical mindset.This activity is designed to help emergency providers improve management of pain while decreasing patient exposure to opioids.  It is also designed to help providers navigate how to manage patients with opioid use disorder.

Chronic conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, lung disease, obesity, and arthritis create a significant burden on our healthcare system. Healthcare professionals witness the impact on patients’ quality of life and also see how hard it is for people to make changes in their health. Instructing patients what to do, alone does not tend to lead to positive behavior changes.

Motivational interviewing is a style of patient counseling that helps resolve a person’s ambivalence about changing his or her habits. The approach is based on what matters to the patient. When each member of an interprofessional team practices from this point of view, the results can be positive for the patient, and for the practitioners.

Floods and landslides can occur in many locations throughout the U.S. This course provides basic information about these hazards and the destruction they can cause. This course emphasizes the importance of being informed about flooding and landslide risks and hazards around you and various protective actions you could consider taking.

The goal of this course is to provide employees with a foundation for staying safe during flooding and landslides.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that approximately 795,000 people within the U.S. experience a stroke annually, and among these individuals, over 75% experience a stroke for the first time (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2021). Stroke, a national and international neurological problem, is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S. and the second leading cause of death globally (World Health Organization [WHO], 2020; American Stroke Association [ASA], n.d.). Nurses need to be informed about the urgency of early treatment to be proactive in educating their communities. They also need to understand the resulting behavioral differences created in right- versus left-hemispheric strokes, and how a lack of knowledge can negatively impact immediate post-stroke care.

Proper functioning of the endocrine system is essential to checks and balances that maintain internal equilibrium. Antidiuretic hormone (ADH) plays a major role in controlling fluid balance. The release of ADH is initiated when the body recognizes a low circulating blood volume causing an increase in water absorption. Syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone (SIADH) is a condition in which the body has an increased response to ADH or an excessive amount of ADH is secreted. In this course, you will learn about SIADH and associated nursing care.

Treatment planning documentation is a critical link between the client, the services you provide, and the client’s progress. This course will reinforce what you already know about plans of care while offering you direction and structure for capturing the real therapeutic relationship on paper. You will learn how to better represent the care process by incorporating the core principles for clinical documentation. You will take a fresh look at ways to record your client’s strengths, goals, and treatment objectives, while also evaluating methods to accurately represent interventions, outcomes, and discharge plans. The goal of this course is to provide professionals in addictions, behavioral health counseling, case management, care management, marriage and family therapy, psychology, social work, and nurses in a health and human services setting with current strategies and recommendations for effective and person-centered treatment planning documentation.

This assessment measures overall learner competencies as aligned with the modules presented in the social determinants of health learning path. The objectives being assessed are the social factors that impact a person’s health, how providers can incorporate the social determinants of health into their patient assessments, how these determinants impact patients’ ability to adhere to their care plans, and how to improve the care-planning process by incorporating social health information.

All health centers funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) must have in place a system to improve patient care and outcomes, which is your center’s quality improvement (QI) program. While the primary benefit is improving patient care and outcomes, there are also financial benefits. The Department of Health and Human Services has allocated $36.3 million to fund centers that meet or exceed quality improvement measures. Although most health centers have established some QI functions, this course will enable you to take a comprehensive approach to implementing QI systems. You will learn about the essentials of QI infrastructure, systems, and programs, along with how to identify quality-related problems using proactive strategies, such as peer review and patient satisfaction surveys, as well as reactive strategies, such as patient complaint tracking systems. Also included is how to put the FOCUS-PDSA model into action.

As they age, many patients find themselves developing one or more chronic diseases, but they don’t know how to navigate this country’s fragmented and exorbitantly expensive healthcare system in order to receive appropriate care. Care coordination by the medical team—providing additional services such as education and close monitoring of the disease process—has been shown to decrease healthcare costs while improving patients’ health. Unfortunately, standardized techniques or processes for care coordination are not in place. This course for nurses discusses care coordination’s process, its various components, current efforts, ideas for improvement, and a review of practical applications for your nursing practice.

This module provides healthcare professionals with information about evidence-based medical therapy, best practice recommendations for the treatment of heart failure, and the role of interprofessional collaboration. It will increase your knowledge about heart failure — how to both recognize and manage it.

Substance use is a growing problem across populations. As a helping professional, you need a basic understanding of how substance use affects your clients. This information will help you to provide support and resources to help clients seek treatment and recovery. In this course, you will explore substance use disorders, how they develop, and their impact on individuals. The course also explains your role as a paraprofessional when working with individuals with substance use disorders. You will be provided an overview of evidence-based interventions and the types of substance use treatment programs available, when additional treatment may be necessary. Detailed examples will help you to apply this information in your own work. The goal of this course is to provide paraprofessionals and peer support specialists in health and human service settings with information on substance use disorders and evidence-based interventions.

This course will introduce you to the influenza pandemic response and its three stages of preparation, response, and recovery. You will learn about the basic elements of a pandemic influenza plan and the steps needed to implement this plan when responding to pandemic levels of influenza in the community.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common type of arrhythmia. It affects approximately 2.7 million people in the U.S. and is a leading risk factor for stroke (AHA, 2016). AF is most commonly seen in patients who are over age 60 years. Many patients with AF are asymptomatic, making it difficult to diagnose. AF can increase the risk of stroke if not diagnosed and treated. Approximately 15% of people who experience a stroke have AF (AHA, 2016). Strokes resulting from AF can be prevented with early screening, diagnosis, and intervention.

Polypharmacy is a widespread problem in older adults as a direct result of chronic conditions requiring an individual to take five or more daily medications. It often leads to adverse drug events that can range from mild to severe or even death. This course discusses polypharmacy, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics. It also discusses basic medication actions and interactions with a focus on the physiological changes and potential reactions seen in older adults. Understanding the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of how medications work on and within the body is important in preventing adverse drug events from polypharmacy.

Healthcare providers are constantly challenged to quickly adapt to organizational change and respond to turbulent environments with many interconnected and moving parts. Experts maintain that interprofessional healthcare teams can improve the quality of care, problem-solve more effectively, and improve outcomes. Building a team with diverse backgrounds and unique perspectives has been shown to have a positive impact on performance. Nurses can make a distinct impact by influencing the design of care delivery and improving the practice environment as part of strategic interprofessional planning . 

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects thousands of people each year. IPV affects people of all social and economic backgrounds, ages, sex, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity. Those who experience IPV often suffer adverse social and health outcomes that make early recognition, identification, and response a priority for professionals working in healthcare and health and human services. The goal of this educational program is to provide nurses, psychologists, social workers, alcohol and drug counselors, marriage and family therapists, and professional counselors in health and human services with information for recognizing, identifying, and responding to intimate partner violence.

Failing to properly onboard employees results in poor performance and unnecessarily high turnover. In this course, we’ll cover best practices and lay out a plan for the first 6 months of a new employee’s orientation and performance expectations. We’ll also explore the importance of culture development as it relates to onboarding.

Advance directives are legal documents with instructions that apply if an adult is not able to make decisions about their own healthcare. They are meant to ensure that a person’s values related to dying, quality of life, and other relevant matters are honored.

The goal of this course is to inform all healthcare staff about the basics of advance directives.

Depression and suicide are among the top public health concerns facing older adult populations. Older adults encounter changes physically, cognitively, and psychosocially that often contribute to the onset of depression. Further, older adult populations have among the highest incident rates of suicide than any other age group, which makes appropriate diagnosis and treatment of depression in this population even more critical. This course will provide an overview of some physical, cognitive, and psychosocial factors that could be contributing to depression in an older adult, as well as important information on recognizing risk factors and warning signs of depression in this population. Additionally, information related to evidence-based treatment strategies for older adult populations will be discussed along with the importance of monitoring treatment adherence.

This course explains the concept of a professional therapeutic boundary and how it differs from a personal relationship. You will learn about the ethical role of the clinical practitioner in establishing appropriate roles and boundaries, the difference between boundary crossings and boundary violations, how to appropriately use social media and other technology, and how to recognize situations with high potential for harmful boundary violations. As you master these skills, you will become more effective in maintaining an appropriate relationship between you and your clients.

You can better assist your patients who have asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by building care teams in primary care. Learn how to assemble these teams and utilize certain disease-specific checkpoints for improved patient outcomes and health management.

Research indicates that screening and brief interventions by health-care professionals can have a significant impact on individuals with drug or alcohol difficulties. This course presents step-by-step guidelines about how to integrate screenings, how to conduct brief interventions that “meet people where they are” in their stage of change, and how to refer individuals to appropriate resources when they suffer from more severe substance issues. This training illustrates best practices using the SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment) approach outlined by SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. You will be equipped with the tools you need to successfully screen and provide brief interventions for substance use issues in your own health-care setting.

This course will familiarize the learner with basic information concerning domestic and intimate partner violence (IPV). Information about IPV’s prevalence, characteristics, legal protections and risk factors will be presented. The cycle of abuse will be explained along with issues related intimate partner homicide. Screening and intervention protocols will be described along with community resources available to people experiencing domestic and intimate partner violence.

Each year, substance use is linked to over 11 million deaths worldwide (Ritchie & Roser, 2019). Supporting individuals’ long-term recovery from substance use can help save lives. Recovery is a lifelong process that aims to keep an individual substance-free while improving their overall quality of life. Wellness strategies enhance recovery outcomes by focusing on optimal health across all dimensions of an individual’s life.

The biopsychosocial model takes a more holistic perspective, emphasizing biological, sociocultural, and psychological factors that relate to the risk of these disorders. This course will present an overview of this model’s primary assumptions, how it differs from other perspectives on substance-related and addictive behaviors, and how it can inform your approach to treatment. The goal of this course is to provide social workers, psychologists, alcohol and drug counselors, marriage and family therapists, professional counselors, and nurses in health and human services with information on how the biopsychosocial model is used in treatment for substance-related and addictive disorders.

By applying evidence-based strategies, nurses can help reduce pain during minor pediatric patient procedures. Nurses must assess the level of pain and understand the barriers to and the options available for effective pain management in pediatric patients. The goal of this educational program is to provide evidence-based practice information that will promote nursing management of pediatric pain during minor procedures. The content in this course is applicable to nurses in acute care and outpatient settings.

As a healthcare professional, you may find yourself in situations where issues with professional boundaries develop. Some boundary violations can be quite serious for you, your team members, your organization, and the people you provide care for. For this reason, it is important for you to be aware of these risks.

You should understand the difference between a boundary crossing and a boundary violation. You must also be able to recognize situations that may lead to a boundary crossing or violation and know how to prevent problems.

The goal of this course is to share with general staff in any setting the basics of how to maintain professional boundaries.

Employee Cyber Security Awareness Training is more important now than it has ever been. Data breaches and hacking may sound unlikely, but cyber-attacks occur daily. In many cases, businesses are unprepared, because management does not understand the risk. Many companies believe they will not be the target of an attack. The truth is that all companies must prepare for a cyber-attack by having an individual or team in place to protect from such an attack.

In an emergency department, information often flows amongst providers and patients quickly because of urgent, sometimes life-threatening, situations. Due to the volume of information being shared, as well as the need for it to be shared quickly and accurately, emergency department providers must be especially careful to safeguard patient information.

The goal of this course is to update nursing professionals in the acute care setting with basic information about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and 42 CFR Part 2.

Being healthcare providers, we know the medical error statistics all too well and, at times, they occur too close to home. The purpose of this course is to help you, whether you work in a skilled nursing facility or an assisted living community, recognize error-prone situations and the factors that impact medical errors in an effort to prevent them.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly called HIPAA, protects the confidentiality and security of healthcare information. HIPAA creates and protects individual privacy rights for protected health information and governs the use and disclosure of that information.

The goal of this course is to provide all staff with an overview of the principles of HIPAA.

The content of this course is sourced from 45 CFR Parts 160,162, and 164 (2020) or HIPAA-related resources from the Health and Human Services (HHS) unless otherwise noted.

All healthcare organizations must follow a specific HIPAA rule, known as the Privacy Rule. This rule limits the use and disclosure of protected health information, known as PHI. The Privacy Rule also grants people the right to view and correct their medical records, receive copies, or request that copies are sent. The goal of this course is to provide all staff with knowledge of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

You will learn about the costs, benefits, and goals of integrated care systems. As there are numerous challenges to integrating care, you will become aware of some of these key challenges, and familiar with particular characteristics of well-functioning integrated care systems. Finally, you will learn a variety of ways that behavioral healthcare professionals, including you, can function effectively in an integrated care environment.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021a), more than 795,000 people experience a stroke each year in the U.S. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S. and is a leading cause of serious, long-term disability. Over half of individuals 65 years old or older who survive a stroke have mobility deficits. Up to 40% of people who suffer a stroke continue to have moderate to severe impairments and require extra care (American Stroke Association, 2019). By understanding the cause of stroke and how to both treat and prevent it, you have the power to improve the lives of the people in your care. This course discusses how to identify when someone is having a stroke as well as treatment both during and after a stroke.

Learn how to identify best practices for building care teams for patients with depression and anxiety, define key checkpoints and patient follow-ups, identify strategies for coordinating care with other providers, and evaluate the care provided by the team.

Listening skills are an often-undeveloped component of effective communication. Leaders and managers with strong listening skills build more productive and engaged teams and increase their own effectiveness. In this course, you will learn the consequences of not listening effectively and how adapting the techniques of active listening will benefit you. You will develop a greater understanding of why and how managers and leaders must listen actively, not passively, to build stronger teams and increase their impact. You will learn the importance of establishing common ground and practicing empathy as you apply the techniques for becoming a better listener.

This course will offer a blend of ethical and legal information, clinical vignettes, and strategies that can later be applied in therapeutic settings. The content of this course includes information about informed consent, confidentiality, privacy, boundaries, mandatory reporting, and rules for sharing information. The course assumes the learner has a basic understanding of telehealth technologies and formats. To learn more, you can search the Relias library for additional courses related to telehealth.

The goal of this course is to provide addictions professionals, behavioral health counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, social workers, and nurses in health and human services settings with strategies and information for competent and ethical telehealth practice.

Life-threatening dysrhythmias can occur in an inpatient setting, even more so in an intensive care unit. Changes to the electrical conduction system can cause sudden hemodynamic instability and cardiac death. Given this, critical care nurses must understand the different types of dysrhythmias, their causes, ECG characteristics, defibrillation, pacing, and nursing interventions.

Understanding the risks for and motivations behind active shooter events, how your body and mind may respond to stress, and how best to prepare for an active shooter event is the best way to protect yourself and others, should the unthinkable occur in your facility.

The goal of this course is to educate healthcare professionals in all settings about specific actions for assessing the risks for, preventing, and responding to an active shooter event.

In healthcare, social media posts can influence the hiring process, violate patient privacy, and result in termination of employment. This module informs healthcare professionals of the risks of social networks, which break down the walls separating our personal and professional lives.

The healthcare system is becoming increasingly complex. Therefore, care coordination and case management (CM) are integral to producing optimal member outcomes, decreasing the cost of care, and ensuring effective use of healthcare services. In this course, you will learn about the function, need, goals, and principles of care coordination and CM within the payor setting as well as common challenges that may be encountered. Finally, you will learn about the care coordination and CM process and the benefits to providers, members, and payer organizations.

The goal of this course is to equip nurses and CM professionals with education about the functions and benefits of the care coordination and CM process.

This course is about workplace slip, trip, and fall hazards. It alerts you to the serious consequences that can result even from a simple fall or a near fall and provides information about measures that can help you prevent these incidents and reduce potential injuries.

Grief is a normal and natural response to loss. It is not a problem to be solved, but rather a way of coping. This course discusses the basics of the grief process, the different types of grief, and ways of expressing grief. It also discusses tools to help you stay present and resilient as a healthcare professional supporting individuals and families.

Critical thinking is the cognitive process of analyzing or evaluating information, and the “disposition to be deliberate about thinking that lead to action that is logical and appropriate” (Von Colln-Appling & Giuliano, 2017, p. 106). Critical thinking involves using a variety of cognitive skills and making an intellectual commitment to using the information gained to inform and direct behavior. This course covers the critical thinking process and describes its relevance and benefits, as well as practical ways to apply critical thinking for nurses and leaders in healthcare settings. While this course focuses on the application of critical thinking in the nursing profession, concepts and strategies presented in this course can be applied to all aspects of healthcare.

Diabetes, a very common chronic condition, can be managed by prescribing proper diet, exercise, and pharmaceutical treatments. This course discusses building care teams for these patients, teaching team members key milestones and checkpoints, ensuring medication adherence, and coordinating care with other providers as it relates to diabetes.

Ensuring that employees are free from harassment in a safe and healthy work environment is key to achieving your company's goals. This course examines various types of workplace harassment, the basic skills needed to understand and deal with such situations, and information concerning your role in ensuring a harassment-free work environment.

This course will guide you through understanding best practices in incident report writing. It will assist you in understanding how those practices help protect the health and safety of the person you support, while at the same time protecting you. In this course, you will identify factors that affect the quality of incident reports and investigate elements that affect memory and recall. You will focus on reducing factors that negatively impact the completeness and accuracy of incident reports. Demonstrating your understanding of the guidelines taught in this course will ensure your documentation adheres to legal, ethical, and programmatic standards. While completing this course, you will review incident report notes and apply what you have learned to identify unclear, subjective, and ungrammatical elements within the notes. This course is intended for direct support professionals

Communication is one of the most important elements of excellent care. This is especially true when decisions about medical treatments need to be made. Advance care planning is an ongoing process in which people explore and discuss their goals, values, and understanding of their health to guide future end-of-life treatment decisions. In this course, you will learn when and how to start conversations and how to use a framework called FIVE WISHES® that simplifies and personalizes the end-of-life conversation and helps to elicit valuable information for decision-making. The goal of this course is to provide healthcare staff with an overview of the benefits and components of effective advance care planning conversations.

Transfusions are a life-saving intervention, but transfusion errors, particularly errors involving ABO incompatibility, can be deadly. Three actions that have frequently been a contributing cause for ABO incompatibility errors are incorrect labeling of the blood sample for crossmatching, incorrect interpretation by personnel in the blood bank, and incorrect identification of the patient prior to initiation of a transfusion. Laboratory staff and nurses who are involved in the administration of blood products must strictly follow facility policies to ensure that they give the correct blood product to the correct patient. The goal of this course is to provide information about blood incompatibility errors and the evidence-based practices to prevent them.

Therapeutic communication between the nurse, patient, and family can be challenging in high-stress environments. Typically, critical care units have higher acuity levels and intense time constraints, thus hindering effective interactions. However, nurses who receive education in communication methods are more prepared to effectively communicate with their patients and families. Given this, critical care nurses must understand communication barriers, cultural influences, the importance of patient-centered communication, and strategies to increase therapeutic interactions. 

Throughout this course, you will gain knowledge about common challenges encountered during telehealth appointments and learn ways to overcome those challenges. You also will learn about effective techniques to communicate, interact, build rapport, and engage with your clients via telehealth. The course will also explore how to improve clinical effectiveness and client outcomes through the use of telehealth within integrated care. Information and vignettes will be blended to offer practical strategies that you can apply in your own setting to use telehealth for adults with behavioral health issues.

In this course, you will meet two different managers and evaluate the results of their autocratic and servant leadership styles. By understanding these leadership styles and their impact, you are better able to bring these learnings to life in your work as a leader. You will also be provided with a Servant-Leader Toolkit with actionable components you can build on. The Toolkit includes best practices, leadership soft skills, and the top 9 characteristics of servant leaders.

In this course, you will gain knowledge in pediatric anatomic and physiological differences, which aids in recognizing normal variations during your exam. You will learn communication techniques to make the exam more comfortable for the child. By using resources and tools available, you will learn important warning signs that warrant immediate referral to other medical professionals. The content in this course is applicable to nursing professionals in any setting. 

Approximately 30 million Americans have some form of hepatic failure. There are 11,886 people in the U.S. on the transplant list waiting for a new liver (Health Resources & Services Administration, 2021). Hepatic failure is rated as one of the leading causes of death, yet we know much less about this condition compared to other chronic diseases. Clinicians should be familiar with signs of liver failure and related conditions, risk factors for the disease, and treatment strategies.

The purpose of this course is to educate healthcare professionals on the causes, complications, and characteristics of hepatic failure to better manage and care for this patient population.

Most healthcare professionals would agree that the only constant in healthcare is change. Ongoing research, new evidence, increasingly complex patient care, and the need to satisfy patients and families have led to constant micro and macro adjustments in care delivery. This course will discuss how innovations can be recognized, developed, adopted, and disseminated amongst staff, as well as review areas where innovations are likely to change the provision of care in the current environment or in the near future. Lastly, we will discuss the patient’s role in innovation, and how patient and family-centered care will drive ongoing changes.

Identify checkpoints for managing and preventing the hospitalization of patients with hypertension (HTN), congestive heart failure (CHF), and coronary artery disease (CAD).

Quality Improvement (QI) can be implemented within almost any healthcare setting and can prove highly beneficial for achieving improved delivery of service outcomes. For quality improvement to be effective, it is crucial that everyone at your agency or clinic be informed of any QI projects and how their roles and responsibilities might impact these projects. The better you understand the QI process, the more proficient you will be as an active participant in improving the quality of services your agency or clinic provides. Using several quality improvement models, as well as detailed and specific examples that demonstrate these models in action, this course offers an overview of quality improvement, along with relevant aspects of how quality improvement impacts not only your job, but also your clinic or agency’s performance. You will be armed with the knowledge you need to apply these concepts in your own setting.

Proficiency in the use of a validated stroke scale, such as the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), is important for any member of the healthcare team caring for patients with acute stroke. This stroke assessment scale efficiently assesses stroke severity, offering objective information about prognosis and outcomes along with directing early treatment. With proper training in the use of the NIHSS, including serial monitoring, specifically for those at risk for worsening neurologic status, little variance should exist in results among clinicians. Education is essential to improving reliability and increasing effective communication regarding treatment of stroke patient

Crisis is broadly defined as an exceptional event that is disruptive and beyond a person‘s usual coping skills. The goal of crisis intervention is to return individuals or families to the optimum level of functioning they experienced before the crisis. In addition, a potential for growth exists when people develop new and effective coping skills. Nurses need to understand crises and assessment and intervention strategies because they are often the first medical personnel to spend enough time with patients to recognize the signs of crisis.

Universal Protocol is a Joint Commission strategy for preventing wrong-site surgeries, along with monitoring adherence by accredited facilities. The safe surgery checklist initiative, by the World Health Organization, was established to provide an outline of necessary tasks to complete in each perioperative phase of care. Along with these, there are many other risk-prevention strategies and tools to help keep surgical patients safe from harm.

The goal of this course is to equip nurses and CSTs with tools and other evidence-based practices for preventing wrong-site surgeries.

In this course, you will learn the essential telehealth components necessary to conduct a clinical assessment, risk assessment, and utilize formal assessment instruments. You will also learn what hardware and software technological resources are needed to connect with clients via telehealth.

The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human services with information on conducting clinical assessments via telehealth.

Cervical cancer continues to affect thousands of women, but increases in routine screening for women ages 21 to 65 have resulted in a steady decrease in the number of diagnosed cases over the past decade. This course discusses the basics of etiology, risk factors, screening methods, diagnosis and staging, and subsequent treatment of cervical cancer. 

Healthcare professionals must go beyond simply recognizing that there are different cultural norms and practices. Culturally appropriate interventions must be utilized when working with culturally diverse clients and patients. Cultural competency goes beyond having knowledge of traditional cultural eating patterns. A lack of cultural competency creates divisions between healthcare professionals and their clients or patients. This course discusses how cultural competency functions to deliver culturally competent care related to diet and nutrition.

Bronchoscopy is a valuable procedure with diagnostic and therapeutic benefits. However, it accompanies risks for potential complications, some of which can be life-threatening. In addition, patients commonly experience anxiety and stress before and during the procedure. In fact, some patients have even described it as traumatic. Nurses play an important role in preparing patients for a bronchoscopy both physically and mentally. 

Utilizing care management can improve and assist in managing patients with chronic health conditions. Care management provides the opportunity to deliver various medical services to patients recently discharged from the hospital. In addition, care management models in a primary care setting can increase a patient’s access to providers, decrease hospital visits, and reduce readmission. 

The goal of this course is to educate case managers, nurses, care managers, and social workers in ambulatory care, acute care, patient-centered medical homes, and behavioral health homes on care management. 

Every year, workers are injured or killed when the equipment they are working with unexpectedly turns on or the residual energy stored in the equipment is released. Lockout/Tagout, or LOTO, is a set of procedures used to control hazardous energy during the service or maintenance of machine and equipment. The aim of LOTO procedures is to protect workers from the release of hazardous energy.  

The goal of this course is to provide all staff with an overview of lockout/tagout procedures.

In today’s workplace, the abundance of “noise,” such as technology, multitasking, stress, and information overload, can make it hard to communicate effectively, ultimately costing time and money. But by learning how to communicate clearly, concisely, and professionally, you’ll increase understanding with your coworkers. This course identifies primary verbal and nonverbal cues, explains active-listening techniques, and suggests how to avoid barriers to good communication.

Sexual harassment makes it hard for workers to feel comfortable and perform their jobs. It also creates problems for employers. This course discusses what sexual harassment is, how to recognize it in the workplace, how it affects individuals and organizations, and what actions to take in response to it. This information will help employees in any industry to be better equipped when dealing with sexual harassment.

 After completing this refresher course on the key action steps in CPR, you will have a grasp on the essential components of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), including the initial first aid steps you can take prior to performing CPR. Through didactic, interactive exercises and vignettes, you will be able to apply this material when you need it most. This course does not replace formalized training and return demonstration that must be completed for competency according to the American Heart Association. This course should only be used as a “refresher” to remind the learner of the key action steps in CPR.

This course provides detailed information about the pathophysiology, disease trajectory, and unique symptoms experienced by patients with advanced neurological diseases. Learners will identify the clinical features of advanced Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease as well as best practices for symptom management. In addition, the key clinical indicators and symptoms that should serve as triggers to optimally transition a patient with advanced neurological diseases to palliative and hospice care are presented. The unique disease-related stressors for family caregivers are discussed. The goal of this course is to provide nurses in hospice with knowledge of caring for people with end-stage neurological diseases.

Lean is a process improvement methodology that began in the manufacturing industry. Through a National Science Foundation Grant, research was conducted regarding its application to healthcare. Lean principles and thinking are now being used at some healthcare facilities. Lean focuses on reducing waste in processes, improving efficiency, and focusing on what is valuable to the patient in the provision of quality care while eliminating steps that are not value added. Lean practitioners are common in the front line and other levels of the organization. Skilled Lean practitioners involve all stakeholders, communicate widely, analyze a process, test solutions, and implement changes to solve problems that add value for patients. 

Data is being applied in ways never before seen by payers and providers to drive healthcare improvement through an analytic approach. Data can be applied to improve healthcare costs, quality, and outcomes. To understand how data is being utilized, you must first understand the broad perspective of what experts are calling the “data revolution” in healthcare, or the “age of big data.” It is also important to know what this means from a technology perspective.

There is also a micro-level of healthcare data application within the payer setting that has different ways in which data is helping payers to improve overall population health, manage healthcare costs, and inform the creation of innovative pilot programs. For those working in a healthcare setting, it is important to know how healthcare data is applied from a payer’s perspective. This includes member case management selection, the intersection of healthcare data and member preference, and how data is being used to inform best practices through medical necessity criteria (MNC) and clinical guidelines.

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (2021), an estimated 37 million people in the U.S. are currently living with renal disease. It ranks among the top causes of death. Often caused by hypertension or diabetes, chronic kidney disease, which is the most prevalent type of kidney disease, is treatable with medication and lifestyle modification. Unfortunately, an estimated 90% of people with chronic kidney disease do not know they have it and therefore do not receive the necessary care to prolong or improve their quality of life. When you understand the underlying risk factors, you can better recognize symptoms, educate, treat, and prevent further kidney damage. This course discusses the pathophysiology of renal disease. It also discusses a nurse’s role in assessing, managing, and educating people with a diagnosis of renal disease.

People have used substances since ancient times. Sometimes substances were used as a medicine to treat an ailment, for recreation, or to support spiritual practices. The desire to find ways to feel or think differently is a normal part of the human experience. However, some people who use drugs develop patterns of compulsive use that are hard for them to control due to how the drug impacts their brain. They can experience harmful, even fatal, consequences. In 2019, the results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 20.4 million people, or 7.4% of the population of the U.S. had a substance use disorder (SAMHSA, 2020a). As behavioral health providers, we have opportunities in our interactions with clients to address thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors around substance use. We can support clients around learning about substances, the impact of substances, work to prevent or identify problematic use and substance use disorders, as well as offer information about treatment or provide treatment to clients.