The goal of this course is to provide providers with training on suicide assessment, treatment, and management that meets the regulatory standards of the state of Washington.

This course for nurses and physicians describes how to assess pediatric pain and recognize the barriers to effectively treating such pain. You will learn pharmacological and nonpharmacological management options and the complexities of managing pain in special populations. You will come away better equipped to appropriately assess and treat pediatric pain in your own setting.

In this course, you will learn about the major categories of medications used in the treatment of mental illness, including antipsychotics, antianxiety medications, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers. You will also learn about the different medications’ indications for use and some of their most common side effects. You will find out about some of the precautions that apply to specific populations taking psychiatric medications, such as older adults and psychiatric medication use during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

This course explains Medicare health plan options other than the original Medicare. It was developed and approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the federally facilitated Health Insurance Marketplace.

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.

As a behavioral health professional, you know how challenging it can be to understand the complexities of diagnosing and treating personality disorders. Drawing upon guidelines from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) and current empirical literature, this course offers you a comprehensive look at the etiology, categories, and diagnostic criteria for personality disorders while considering differential diagnoses and co-occurring disorders. Lastly, this course offers information on best practices for the treatment of personality disorders.

Annually in this country, an average of 800,000 patient hospitalizations involve mechanical ventilation, with an estimated cost of 27 billion dollars, or 12 percent of all hospital costs. Proper ventilator management techniques are imperative in providing safe, quality patient care. This course discusses related respiratory physiology, modes of ventilation, commonly referenced ventilator values, principles for managing the mechanically ventilated patient, and the pharmacology of pain and sedation used during mechanical ventilation. Applying this information in your healthcare setting will help to ensure optimal outcomes for your patients.

You will learn about the three different presentations of ADHD along with key behaviors of each. In addition to specific diagnostic criteria of ADHD, you will learn how to identify typical symptoms, particularly how symptoms manifest differently in individuals of different ages.

This course also discusses some of the possible causes of ADHD as well as current treatment options for children, teenagers, and young adults, including both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. A series of experiential lessons and interactive exercises will help you practice and apply what you have learned.

Do no harm: A fundamental principle of medical care, yet thousands of patients suffer harm from medical errors every day. Some reports estimate annual deaths from medical errors in the U.S. to be as high as 250,000, but a more recent study revealed that number may be highly inflated (Rodwin et al., 2020). The actual number of preventable deaths estimated by a meta-analysis was 22,165, with most occurring in people expected to have less than 3 months to live. For those who were expected to live longer than 3 months, 7,150 deaths occurred. The difference may be due to over-estimation or from initiatives to reduce errors since initial values were released. Regardless, healthcare professionals are obliged to do no harm, so continued efforts are needed to reduce medical errors.

This course is intended to educate nurses, physicians, and physician assistants on the causes and strategies for preventing medical errors.

An approach that prevents and treats acute pain while avoiding unnecessary exposure to opioids is the goal of pain management (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2019b). Clinicians should integrate patient-centered approaches, therapies, technology, and self-care strategies while collaborating with other professionals to manage pain (Cohen et al., 2020). However, barriers to the use of best practices for pain management are prevalent at the patient-provider, practice, and systems levels. Resolution of stigma and structural inequalities that limit access to evidence-based pain treatments is required to eliminate barriers.

The goal of this course is to provide healthcare professionals with evidence-based guidance for managing pain while weighing the risks and benefits of pain medications with functional improvement and harm prevention.

This course is designed to help you distinguish between legal, ethical, and standard of care issues. It is designed to serve as a guide to help you understand the law and make ethical decisions in your work, as well as develop risk management and compliance strategies to help you avoid disciplinary actions and claims of malpractice. You will also learn about informed consent, confidentiality and privacy, professional boundaries, and use of technology, among other issues. Taking this course can help you prepare for and recognize legal and ethical concerns. However, you will also need to familiarize yourself with the specific laws, ethical codes, organizational policies, and standards of care that apply to your practice. Professional organizations and associations, state licensing boards, and attorneys familiar with behavioral health law can help you access information relevant to your work. Please note, the content in this course is designed to heighten clinicians’ general awareness of legal and ethical concerns. It is not offered as legal advice for any individual provider or specific situation.

The Health and Medicine Division’s (HMD) (formerly the Institute of Medicine) Healthy People 2020 and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality have highlighted the health disparities affecting LGBTQ populations. As evidence of health-illness patterns continues to be reported in the literature, this module presents the complex social determinants of health unique among the LGBTQ community. Information will be analyzed based on the four conceptual perspectives for understanding LGBTQ health suggested by the HMD: minority stress, intersectionality, life-course framework, and social ecology.

A critical step for service providers in receiving reimbursement is to submit treatment-planning documentation. This course reinforces what you already know about plans of care, while offering suggestions for capturing the real therapeutic relationship on paper. You will learn how to hone in on core principles for clinical documentation; take a fresh look at ways to record your client’s strengths, goals, and treatment objectives; and evaluate methods of accurately representing interventions, outcomes, and discharge plans.

This course will provide you with information about the numerous risk and protective factors of suicide. You will learn effective screening approaches you can use to identify elevated risk. You will also learn how to follow a positive screening with an in-depth clinical assessment, including several different models you can use to guide your assessment. The goal of this course is to provide alcohol and drug counseling, marriage and family therapy, counseling, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human services with skills to identify individuals at increased risk of suicide.

This course focuses specifically on early interventions that are designed to reduce suicide risk. You will learn how these early interventions impact suicide risk. You will also learn of examples and the role that programs highlighting connectedness, life skills, and resilience play in preventing suicide. The goal of this course is to provide social work, psychology, nursing, alcohol and drug counseling, marriage and family therapy, and counseling professionals in health and human services with information about community-based, upstream suicide prevention approaches. 

Nurses encounter victims of domestic violence or intimate partner violence regardless of where they work. Those who practice in offices, hospitals, clinics, homes, or facilities must be aware that living with domestic violence may be part of a person’s daily life. Even though education for healthcare professionals and routine screening in EDs is mandated, many abused people do not receive needed support. Nurses are able to recognize and help victims, yet do not necessarily receive education about domestic violence. This updated CE module provides information nurses need to increase their understanding of and provide support to people experiencing domestic and intimate partner violence.

Disclaimer: Images in this course depict violence that has been inflicted on children and adults. They may be disturbing to some learners.

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a way of communicating that draws out people’s own thoughts and beliefs in order to help them resolve ambivalence about change. In addition to examining the underlying spirit of MI, you will learn specific skills and techniques that will support the MI processes of engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning with clients as they discover their own reasons for change. The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human service settings with the skills to define and demonstrate the core concepts of Motivational Interviewing.

HIPAA rules underlie every service related to behavioral health, and they change to meet evolving trends. There are potentially catastrophic organizational and individual consequences if the current HIPAA rules are not followed. This course will help you to identify potential legal and ethical issues related to HIPAA, improve your compliance approach, and develop more effective risk management strategies.

The goal of this course is to assist alcohol and drug counselors, marriage and family therapists, professional counselors, psychologists, social workers, and nurses in health and human services settings in understanding and applying current HIPAA regulations.

The outlook for people with schizophrenia has improved over the last 25 years. Although there is no cure yet, it is important to remember that many people can manage the illness to lead independent, satisfying lives. The main goal of this course is to provide you with the information and current research you need to better understand how to collaborate in the treatment of schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Thoracentesis, also known as thoracocentesis or pleural tap, can be stressful not only for patients and their families, but also for the interdisciplinary team of practitioners involved in the care surrounding this invasive procedure. This course discusses the physiological, pharmacological, and procedural principles surrounding thoracentesis so you can better manage all stages of the procedure and improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.

The two most common trauma-related disorders are acute stress disorder (ASD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The goal of this educational program is to provide nurses, social workers, marriage and family therapists, professional counselors, and psychologists in health and human services settings with information on the diagnostic criteria for acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, steps in the diagnostic process, and psychological and pharmacological interventions to treat PTSD.

This course provides an overview of how anxiety impacts children and adolescents. You will learn about the specific types of anxiety disorders and the multiple pathways by which anxiety can develop. As you progress through this course, you will learn assessment strategies and evidence-based interventions that you can implement to identify and treat these disorders in children and adolescents.

This course examines the factors that may contribute to the underutilization of healthcare services, as well as ways to improve cultural understanding and competency in healthcare treatment. More specifically, this course covers the significance of cultural diversity, demographics, as well as individual and cultural diversity factors. The information in this training proposes some helpful conceptual frameworks for embracing cultural considerations in healthcare.

Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is an effective, yet underused, approach to the treatment of opioid use disorder. Misconceptions about what MAT is, how it is used, and whether it is helpful, are common. Your clients with opioid use disorder may share these misconceptions, creating a barrier to treatment. By taking this course, you will have information that you can share with your clients and their family members about what MAT is, how it helps, its major components, and the medications used in MAT. Note: If you are a prescriber, this course does not meet the federal requirements to qualify for a waiver to prescribe and dispense buprenorphine. You will need to pursue additional training to meet those requirements. The goal of this educational program is to provide alcohol and drug counseling, nursing, professional counseling, social work, and psychology professionals in health and human services settings with an overview of what MAT is, how it helps individuals with opioid use disorder, and the medications used in MAT programs.

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.

The incorporation of screening for alcohol use disorders in a general medical setting can significantly increase the number of individuals with alcohol use disorders who are identified and treated. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved 4 medications to treat alcohol use disorder, making treatment in primary care and other general medical settings a viable alternative to specialty care. This course will give you valuable information about these medications as well as several medications used off-label, empowering those you serve and increasing the likelihood of their recovery.

The OR is a complex environment. Highly trained individuals interact in a specialized setting with sophisticated and technically complicated devices, instruments, and equipment. There also are substantial differences among team members related to education, experience, skill level, influence, and formal and informal power. This module will inform nurses and surgical technologists of the evidence-based steps to take to create a culture of safety in the OR.

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.

As the number of older adults increases, especially those who are older and frailer, the incidence of elder abuse is expected to increase. Mistreatment of older adults often occurs in isolation and often remains undetected. The first step to addressing the problem is to heighten awareness of abuse of the old, in particular among those who serve them or have frequent contact with them. Throughout this course, you will learn about types of elder abuse, indicators, consequences, risk factors of abuse, and interventions. You will have the opportunity to test what you have learned in each section through brief quizzes. The course also offers typical elder abuse case scenarios drawn from actual case material from Adult Protective Services or other elder abuse program caseloads.

Ensuring that a healthcare system is culturally competent can reduce health disparities. Healthcare employees who have effective interpersonal and working relationships are essential to successful healthcare outcomes. Healthcare staff provide care to individuals from many backgrounds, so it is essential that they get proper Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training. DEI training should be integrated into the standard hiring and onboarding process for the entire healthcare workforce. The goal of this course is to provide healthcare employees with training about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

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.

In this course, you will learn about the effects of age and life transitions on alcohol and drug use in women and how these are reflected in treatment methodologies. A host of stressors and life transitions can be accompanied by significant changes in substance use and can be implicated in women's development of a substance use disorder. You will learn ways that you can provide gender-sensitive treatment to women struggling with substance use or at risk of developing a substance use disorder. The goal of this educational program is to provide marriage and family counseling, nursing, professional counseling, social work, and psychology professionals in health and human services settings with information about substance use treatment for women at various stages of development.

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.

This module presents an overview of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community and its contentious history with the healthcare systems. Definitions of key concepts related to sexuality and gender variables and general implications for clinical education, practice, and research will be discussed. The goal of this educational course for social work, nursing, occupational therapy, pharmacy, speech language pathology and audiology, medical, and physical therapy professionals is to enhance the understanding of issues that the LGBTQ community has when navigating and using the healthcare system. In this module, the acronym LGBTQ will be used when referring to all groups (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer). In cases where the literature cited refers specifically to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender populations, the course will use corresponding initials.

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.

Rates of suicide among youth continue to increase, making it essential for behavioral health clinicians and other professionals working with adolescents and transition-age youth to understand the dynamics of suicide among young people. After providing a foundation on how widespread the problem is and the prevailing theories about the drivers of suicidal behaviors, this course will teach you about how to effectively screen potentially suicidal youth and ways you can intervene to lower their risk. The goal of this course is to provide alcohol and drug counseling, behavioral counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human services settings with skills for reducing suicide risk in adolescents and transition-age youth.

This training introduces you to several models to enhance your communication with individuals from a range of diverse backgrounds. You will also learn about cultural barriers to treatment, several health belief systems, and factors to consider in a culturally responsive assessment. It is worth noting that culture is always at play, regardless of the healthcare provider’s capacity to recognize and/or respond to it appropriately.

This course will focus on the biological and psychosocial factors that are unique to adolescents and that impact their vulnerability to the negative effects of opioid use. You will increase your understanding of the scope of opioid use disorders among adolescents and young adults and improve your ability to effectively identify and treat problematic, nonmedical use of prescription and other opioids. 

The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human services with information on the development, prevalence, and treatment of opioid use disorders in adolescent and young adult populations.

A diagnosis of major neurocognitive disorder can be devastating due to the losses associated with the disease. Neurocognitive disorders affect every part of a person’s life, and as behavioral health professionals, we have an opportunity to offer support, comfort, and care. The goal of this course is to provide education to beginner and intermediate addiction specialists, behavioral health counselors, marriage and family therapists, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals working in health and human services settings on how to evaluate, assess, and treat older adults with major neurocognitive disorder.

This course will help you determine the steps you need to take to build and implement an effective advance care planning program and describe how resources from the FIVE WISHES framework program can help. You will learn how to build support, determine goals and measures, and identify processes and standards to ensure your program is making a difference for your care recipients and your healthcare organization.

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

The goal of this course is to provide providers in health and human services settings with skills for preventing suicide among veterans.

At the organizational level, routine implementation of evidence-based practices that can identify and intervene with at-risk individuals, has been lacking for many years and remains so in many settings. The goal of this course is to provide knowledge about evidence-based, suicide-specific interventions. This course for healthcare professionals will focus on working with at-risk individuals focuses on interventions for those who have made a recent suicide attempt or who are at risk due to suicidal thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Also discussed are ways to summarize the process for completing a safety plan and for reducing access to lethal means.

Healthcare and behavioral health professionals providing services on the front lines of a sustained health crisis are exposed to traumatic events on a regular basis. Staff deemed essential have little escape from the grueling demands of their daily work. Professional self-care routines are often insufficient or seemingly impossible during times of heavy demand. Without healthy work-life balance, effective self-care practices, and social connection, maladaptive coping mechanisms may surface or return. Many professionals experience feelings of helplessness when, despite their best efforts, they are unable to provide clinical solutions for their clients or patients. Based on what is known about trauma, it is imperative for professionals to effectively address self-care needs in a timely manner, for themselves and for those they serve.

One of the hormones used by the endocrine system to finely regulate and maintain the human body is Antidiuretic Hormone (ADH). By increasing water absorption, ADH helps control the body’s fluid balance when the circulating blood volume becomes too low. However, a condition known as Syndrome of Inappropriate Antidiuretic Hormone (SIADH) develops when an excessive amount of ADH is secreted or when the body has an increased response to ADH. In this course, you will learn about SIADH, how to identify patients at risk and their clinical presentation, nursing care for those with SIADH, how to identify complications associated with treatment, and the monitoring required for prevention.

This course was created to give you the tools you need to accurately identify individuals with BPD and provide you information about the treatment options available. You will learn about how BPD develops, the theoretical perspectives and conflicting theories of BPD, the goals of treatment, and the challenges you might experience when working with this population. Finally, you will learn some of the most common issues that individuals with BPD experience while in treatment.

As a healthcare professional, you have often heard the adage that says, "If you didn’t document something, you didn’t do it." It is no longer true that you can be exempt from malpractice or negligence claims because you were following orders. As a professional in the healthcare industry, you are expected to be familiar with many aspects of care. If you are a nurse, you are responsible for assessing, planning, implementing, and evaluating nursing care. If you are a social worker, you are responsible for assessing, planning, implementing, and evaluating psychosocial care. What you document can and does reflect the care provided and the resulting outcome when the documentation is factual, complete, timely, and detailed. In this course, you will learn about concepts and rules regarding documentation in the medical record as it relates to negligence, malpractice, and civil litigation.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) was enacted to prevent patient dumping by hospitals seeking to avoid unrecoverable costs of care for patients without insurance or the ability to pay for medical services. Language within the statute has led to inconsistencies in how it has been interpreted. Patient dumping and inappropriate medical screening examinations (MSEs) are the most common reasons for EMTALA violations (Ladd & Gupta, 2021). This course will describe how key terms are currently interpreted and how they apply to hospitals with a dedicated emergency department (ED). In addition, learners will have an opportunity to review cases where EMTALA violations were alleged and judgments applied by the courts. 

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.

Cerebrovascular accidents (CVAs), or strokes, are a    leading cause of death in the U.S. (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2021). Patient prognosis and the preservation of functional status are highly dependent on receiving prompt, timely treatment. A thorough understanding of stroke pathophysiology is crucial, as is assessing, diagnosing, and determining the appropriate plan of care. With this understanding, clinicians will be better equipped to make the best possible decisions in the provision of care for their patients.

The state of healthcare in the U.S. is poor when compared to other developed countries and the need to balance cost and quality has become apparent (The Commonwealth Fund, 2019). Utilization management helps ensure the most optimal care is being provided and waste of resources or services is reduced when possible. Clinicians in utilization management perform a variety of functions to help achieve a balance between quality and cost of care. Utilization reviews are one method to reveal areas where cost or quality can be improved and can serve as a basis for quality improvement initiatives in all healthcare settings. Thus, the importance of utilization management will continue to grow as regulatory bodies and healthcare professionals strive to improve the state of U.S. healthcare.

The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) establishes new ways to reimburse physicians for providing care to Medicare beneficiaries. This course explores MACRA, its various quality measures, and ways you can implement change and sustain best practices.

While strokes can be fatal, symptoms of stroke can be abetted if the patient is treated early enough. Educating patients on stroke prevention is vital for those who are at risk to avoid a medical emergency. In addition, it is important for healthcare providers (HCPs) to understand the etiological risk factors for stroke, as well as management techniques for patients who have already suffered a stroke.

Regardless of discipline or setting, routine behavioral health screening will allow you to provide the best care possible. This course will provide a review of some of the most widely used behavioral health screening tools currently available to support collaborative care. In addition, we will explore important factors for consideration when integrating such screening tools into the workflow of your practice. 

The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in community health settings with information on how to screen clients for behavioral health conditions.

The goal of this course is to provide the clinician with up-to-date best practices for identifying and treating patients with PAD. It includes symptoms, complications, risk factors, and modifications of PAD. In addition, diagnostic tests, assessment, and treatment strategies will be discussed.

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.

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.

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.

The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human service settings with information about how substance use disorders can impact family systems and approaches to help the family system. 

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.

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.

With healthcare policies shifting from fee-for-service to performance-based payment models that hold providers accountable for poor outcomes, a better understanding of factors that contribute to non-adherence is needed, along with effective strategies for improvement. This course covers the wide array of contributing forces behind non-adherence, along with evidence-based interventions for optimizing outcomes. You will also learn how to apply interventions best suited to individual patients based on their needs and risks related to adherence.

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.

In this course, you will learn to identify different depressive disorders, as well as the unique ways depression manifests in children and adolescents. Additionally, you will learn to recognize risk factors for both depression and suicidality in youth.  

An integrated care model treats the whole child by combining primary care and mental healthcare in one setting. Within this model, treatment providers understand how to screen for depression and suicidality in order to coordinate care. You will learn about specific instruments useful for detecting depression and suicidality among youth. An understanding of the root causes of depression will highlight the rationale for various treatment approaches. Lastly, you will be able to describe the best practices available to help children and adolescents manage depression.  

This course presents an overview of multicultural care and service delivery. You will be guided through the national standards in the United States for working with individuals from diverse backgrounds and cultures, along with key concepts that relate to your role in the alleviation of health disparities. Examples of individual and organizational applications of multicultural care will help you to apply these concepts in your own setting. You will learn about ways that you and your organization can improve quality of care by considering health literacy, cultural responsiveness, and structural disparities.

As a healthcare professional transporting patients to the ED, you may serve patients with symptoms indicative of behavioral health disorders, such as depressive, bipolar, and anxiety disorders. In some situations, the ED provider must administer psychiatric medications. However, if possible, it is prudent to defer their use until the patient is admitted to an inpatient mental health facility or seen as an outpatient. In many instances, the reason for presentation in the ED is an adverse reaction to psychiatric medications.

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.

Anxiety disorders, the most common psychiatric illnesses, affect millions of American adults, filling their lives with overwhelming anxiety, fear, and uncertainty out of proportion to any actual danger. These symptoms often persist for significant periods of time, and if not treated, can grow progressively worse. Anxiety disorders frequently occur in conjunction with other psychiatric or physical illnesses, making symptoms even worse. This course provides an overview of signs and symptoms as well as the most effective psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatments available. New and improved therapies can help most people with anxiety disorders lead productive, fulfilling lives. This course will help you recognize anxiety disorders in those you serve and implement the most appropriate form of treatment.

Learning about the feelings and thoughts that accompany grief can lessen your fear and anxiety surrounding it. In this course, you will learn a basic understanding of the grief process, the different types of grief, and ways of expressing it. You will learn about the gifts of grief and that it is an agent of change. Finally, you will also learn some tools to help you stay present and resilient as a healthcare professional journeying with clients and families.

In just over a year, COVID-19 has changed how healthcare is delivered in the U.S. Guidelines governing preventive measures, including how we interact with everyone from patients to members of our own families, have undergone a process of near-constant evolution. Treatment recommendations have been regularly updated as scientists and providers have learned more about how the virus affects the human body. This course provides an overview of the latest information about the virus, preventing transmission, illness classification and treatment of patients with symptomatic disease, and currently authorized vaccines.

Suicide is the 17th leading cause of death worldwide and the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Early detection, assessment, and effective intervention are vital in caring for patients with medical illnesses who may also be suffering from depression. Patients with medical illness are at risk for depression, and depression may be complicating treatment and the ability to recuperate effectively. Underdiagnosed and undertreated depression may be taking an enormous toll on the resources of both the patient and the family. This course will teach healthcare professionals what makes a patient vulnerable to suicide, recognize and treat depression, and components of treatment plan.

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.

People living with hypertension, coronary artery disease (CAD), and congestive heart failure (CHF) are among healthcare payers’ highest cost members. People may have these conditions simultaneously, and having even just one of them—especially if not well-managed—often increases a patient's risk of developing the others. Early detection and treatment of hypertension reduces disease progression and drives down costs. This course provides evidence-based recommendations on how to provide clinically appropriate care, how to teach patients self-management techniques for their conditions and create an action plan, and how to identify other factors that could impact their condition.

The U.S. is one of just eight countries to see a rise in maternal mortality during the past decade, with a ranking of 60 out of 180 countries for maternal deaths. High-risk pregnancies with mothers who are surviving childhood conditions into adulthood are among the reasons for the high rate; however, a large proportion of maternal deaths are still considered preventable, indicating that further improvement is possible. This course provides comprehensive knowledge about medical conditions the pregnant woman might face and how access to other disciplines such as cardiology, dermatology and rheumatology may improve the health and outcomes for the mother and fetus.

Opioids are used to treat severe pain but also include serious risks if the medication is misused. The misuse of prescribed and illicit opioids contributes to rising numbers of opioid overdose deaths. This course will provide you with an overview of opioid use disorder, detailed information to gather during a comprehensive assessment, and treatment options to implement with clients diagnosed with opioid use disorder. 

The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is a tool used to measure the severity of stroke symptoms and aid in identifying the location of the injury. The NIHSS has been shown to strongly predict the likelihood of a patient’s recovery after stroke. 

The goal of this course is to equip clinicians with the knowledge necessary to apply the NIHSS to patients experiencing an acute stroke.

Nurses working with older adults will likely encounter wounds. Both acute and chronic wounds are more likely to occur in older adults than their younger counterparts because of the chronic conditions associated with the wounds, such as vascular disease, venous insufficiency, and diabetes mellitus. This course discusses the effects aging has on the skin’s function. It also discusses common wounds seen in older adults. 

About 20 percent of emergency department visits are due to hand and wrist injuries. While most hand injuries are straightforward, many cause long-term complications that may profoundly alter a person‘s ability to work, create, and enjoy life to the fullest. This continuing education program, which includes the steps for preserving an amputated body part, addresses the assessment and treatment of patients with hand trauma.

The first recorded defibrillation case was of a child, and yet we are taught that most pediatric patients do not go into ventricular fibrillation. Questions about the amount of joules, pad size, and the use of an AED are asked every time the words "pediatric code" are heard. An extensive review of research, evidence-based practice, and American Heart Association guidelines provides a concise standard to use when resuscitating pediatric patients.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) face many of the same issues at the end of life as people without such disabilities. They also face additional issues and challenges. As people with intellectual disability (ID) live longer, they outlive family caregivers more frequently. This often requires additional supports in advanced age, different service locations, and additional planning. The number of people in this situation is expected to rise as the “Baby Boomer” generation moves into this age category (Heller, Gibbons, & Fisher, 2015).

This course will introduce basic legal and ethical guidelines for decision making at the end of life. Advanced planning can provide clarity in complex, stressful situations when people are unable to communicate or provide consent. Your knowledge of an individual’s preferences and rights, as well as ethics, will help you support the person you are serving and their families. This course provides basic information about some common medical decisions that are included in an end-of-life care plan, as well as information about specialized healthcare options such as palliative care and hospice.

The goal of this course is to introduce nurses, psychologists, social workers, and qualified IDD professionals to critical issues at the end of life for people with IDD.

The goal of this course is to provide all staff with an overview of CPR.

NOTE: This course does not replace the 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.

The content of this course is sourced from the American Heart Association’s CPR and ECC Guidelines unless otherwise noted. The American Heart Association is not affiliated with nor endorses this course.

Healthcare professionals are often unprepared to respond to requests for physician-assisted death. With the increase in end-of-life discussions and more arguments for legalizing physician-assisted dying, healthcare professionals need to understand the reasons patients may initiate such a request. Healthcare professionals need to appropriately respond to these requests. This course discusses physician-assisted death and the related concepts. It also discusses ethical and legal concerns related to physician-assisted death. Without the knowledge and understanding of physician-assisted death, healthcare professionals may not respond appropriately to these requests from patients.

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was implemented in 1996 and has been revised since then. HIPAA can refer to guidelines that protect your ability to maintain your health insurance as you move from job to job or place to place (“portability”). HIPAA can also refer to efforts to simplify the administration of health insurance. These efforts include the creation of national standards for diagnostic terms, insurance forms, and provider identification. Perhaps the most common use of the term for healthcare professionals, however, involves protecting the confidentiality and privacy of healthcare information. In this course, you will learn about parts of HIPAA, especially as they concern nursing and other health professionals and the protection of healthcare information. Because you play a key role in the production of healthcare information, you play a key role in its protection.

The prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is increasing in the U.S. and worldwide. However, if the condition is well managed, it can result in a healthy pregnancy. Maternal child health professionals must understand the condition, risk factors, and how to treat it.

 The goal of this continuing education module is to help nurses advance their understanding of perinatal HIV transmission, prevention factors, and related legal and ethical issues.

Diabetes is a chronic health condition that affects millions of people all over the world. If not managed properly, it can lead to serious complications and even death. This course discusses the basics of diabetes, current medical treatments, and nursing care. Knowing and understanding the effects of diabetes will help you provide care to individuals with diabetes and help them to maintain their quality of life. 

The goal of this course is to educate nursing professionals in post-acute care on the basics of diabetes.