-
Protected: NPACE Grant Funded Education
-
August Director Notes
Should Practicing NPs Make Back To School Time a Priority for Themselves?
By: Terri Schmitt PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP, Executive Director, NPACE
It’s fall and back to school is on top of mind for many. In contemplating this time of year it dawned on me that I only think of back to school as a season for the kids, or when I was teaching it also coincided with preparing for my own classes and students. What if ‘back to school’ was a time for everyone? What if we all used each fall as a time to reflect on our own current learning needs, the things to improve our practice, or to explore areas unknown? What would it look like if once a year we really set aside time for ourselves to better our minds and our professional practice?
This fall I have personally vowed to start just this, to begin taking the fall to set one learning goal for myself and find the resources to learn in that area. One of my own personal areas to set learning this fall is in learning more about how as a nurse practitioner I could start my own healthcare business. Luckily for me, there is an entire morning workshop devoted to this subject at an upcoming NPACE conference in October in Cape Cod! Dr. Lynn Rapsilber is devoting a whole morning to the topic of NPs starting their own business. I plan on attending Lynn’s session and working to expand how I can impact patient health, and outcomes, and improve access to care through my own business.here. Not only can you provide specific feedback on what you want to learn about through NPACE, but you can also win a chance at a free 2024 in-person conference seat.
If you have specific professional learning needs, you might find what you need at our learning center at learn.npace.org. You may want to join us in Cape Cod or Phoenix to attend a workshop, brush up on pharmacology knowledge, or attend primary care or acute care track. If you can’t find exactly what you are looking for to help you in your ‘back to school’ life-long professional learning journey, then please take a moment to fill out our annual Needs AssessmentOur goal is to help you meet some of your professional and practice needs. It’s the focus of everything we do and this month we are thankful for your work as nurses and nurse practitioners. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements! Follow us on social media or reach out to us with your thoughts and ideas at npace@npace.org.
Terri Schmitt PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP
Executive Director -
June Director Notes
The computer in your pocket
By: Terri Schmitt PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP
Executive Director, NPACE
Smartphones and mobile apps provide excellent tools to daily clinical practice. Frequent updates, reputable sources, and convenience can improve evidence-based practice and patient outcomes. Below are some useful phone apps for advanced practice providers:
- Epocrates: A medication reference app providing information on interactions, dosage, formulation, side effects, warnings and more. Included is a pill identifier feature and medical news updates.
- Medscape: A medical news app with disease specific information, a drug reference feature, and continuing medical education. Establishing an account is needed with an email.
- VisualDX: This app provides visual diagnostics and images to help healthcare providers diagnose and treat various medical conditions. The visual database is large, making it a great learning tool for new NPs and students as well.
- MDCalc: A medical calculator app that provides a variety of medical screening tools and risk calculators like PHQ – 9, GAD-7, GFR, creatinine clearance, STOPBANG for OSA, and others.
- CDC apps:
- CDC Vaccine Schedules: Vaccination schedules: This app provides updated schedules for vaccinating patients throughout the lifespan.
- CDC Milestone Tracker: Track pediatric milestones. Parents can use this per child. Used in conjunction with AAP standards and regular physical exams.
- CDC Opioid Guidelines: Current CDC guidelines as well as a morphine milligram equivalent calculator (MME). There is even an interactive guide to motivational interviewing.
- STI Treatment Guidelines: This app carries current CDC treatment and testing guidelines for STIs.
- US MEC US SPR Contraception App: This CDC app contains the U.S. medical eligibility criteria for contraceptive use and was developed in conjunction with CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and the Division of Reproductive health. Clinicians can use this app to compare certain medications, medical congestions, and combined or complex issues in deciding what contraceptive method to use in a patient.
- Figure 1: Figure 1 is a medical image sharing app that allows healthcare providers to share images and collaborate on patient care. The app also includes a database of medical images and videos for reference.
- GoodRx: This app is great for patients and providers to find formulations and prices of medications in local pharmacies.
- USPSTF Guidelines: The US Prevention Task Force is a phone-based app for primary care to identify appropriate screening of patients based on age, risk factors, gender, and more. Great tool for every primary care clinician.
- ASCVD risk calculator: Created by the American College of Cardiology, this web-based app can also be found in Apple and Google app stores. A great resource to calculate cardiovascular disease risk in adult patients.
- AHA guidelines on the go: The American Heart Association (AHA) provides an excellent app for your mobile device to keep access to all current AHA guidelines at your fingertips.
- eMPR (https://www.empr.com/download-empr/): Access to medications, clinical cases, and guidelines this app is an excellent resource for clinicians in all areas.
- ACP guidelines (https://www.acponline.org/clinical-information/clinical-guidelines-recommendations/mobile-clinical-guidelines): The American College of Physicians mobile guidelines app houses current recommendations and guidelines by the ACP for use in primary care.
These are just a few of the mobile applications that clinicians can use to improve care planning and patient outcomes. Application selection should include considerations of usability, relevancy of information, reliability of information, and reputation of the app information authority.
-
May Director Notes
Nurses’ Month & Helping Form New NPs
By: Terri Schmitt PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP
Executive Director, NPACE
May is a month of celebration. We celebrate Mother’s Day, International Workers’ Day, and of course National Nurses’ Month. Here at NPACE, we are excited to honor all nurses for their professional work. As a way of giving back to the healthcare community, NPACE is pleased to offer 20% off your entire cart on our Learning Center from May 24th to May 31st, using code NURSESMONTH. We have courses that meet every of your learning need, licensing, or recertification renewal. Browse our courses today! Don’t forget to set a side time for self-care activities. NPACE Free Yoga and Meditation sessions are a great way for you to relax and spend time with yourself.
One of our other priorities is impacting the next generation of NPs and supporting NP educator professional learning needs. We are happy to work with NONPF as a partner to bring NP educators a package of teaching resources. Now these resources are available as individual modules for NPACErs to purchase. The package is geared to help new and novice NP faculty in the nuances of educating NP students. This offers a great option for NP faculty to complete an individual module in a specific area like assessment where topics like writing an exam blueprint or exam question and writing course objectives is included.
Our goal is to help you meet some of your professional and practice needs. It’s the focus of everything we do and this month we are thankful for your work as nurses and nurse practitioners. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements! Follow us on social media or reach out to us with your thoughts and ideas at npace@npace.org.
-
April Director Notes
Keeping up with Pharmacology: Tips for new and practicing NPs
By: Terri Schmitt PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP
Executive Director, NPACE
Pharmacology knowledge is essential for safe practice but continually updating and changing. Of course, attending pharmacology continuing education is helpful, but what are other crucial tools to consider?
- Attending Live Continuing Education: For me, this one makes the top of the list. CE programs offer updated information on important topics. Live teachers, relaxing locations, wellness, professional connection, up-to-date and evidenced-based information are our foundation of in-person CE at NPACE. Check out our 2023 locations here. Join us in beautiful San Diego for an entire conference on pharmacology!
- On Demand Education: Meeting your budget, location, and scheduling needs. NPACE Learning Center can help you find specific education on pharmacology topics you struggle with. Enhance your skills with NPACE Grand Pharmacology Bundle and free CE that can meet your state licensing and recertification needs.
- Online Resources: There are a variety of good online resources for NPs, such as Epocrates, that offers free updates and information. UpToDate, Lexicomp, Medical Professionals Reference (MPR) and Micromedex also have online versions and resources as well.
- Consult a Pharmacist: Build your professional network. Go into the local pharmacy and introducing yourself or joining a local pharmacists group. Simply calling and talking to a nearby pharmacist to ask questions can be helpful in medication management, dosing, interactions, contraindications and obtaining information on current supply and costs.
- Collaborate with Colleagues: Colleagues can be a valuable resource for pharmacology knowledge. Collaborating with other healthcare providers who may have experiences with a particular set of medications is helpful and a great place to discuss possible treatment options and considerations.
- Stay Current with Guidelines: Knowing when new guidelines are published and taking time to read them is critical for practicing NPs. Regular clinical guidelines are published by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others.
- Take Advantage of Drug Alerts: Many EHRs have routine drug alerts and updates. Take time to read them as they often alert drug interactions, dosages, and possible allergies.
- Stay Informed of Medication Recalls and Shortages: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides updates on medication recalls, warnings, and shortages on their website.
Updating pharmacology knowledge is essential for excellent patient outcomes. Keeping these few common tips in minds and utilizing our resources here at NPACE, you can stay updated on areas critical to your NP practice.
-
March Director Notes
Keeping My Skills Up: The struggle is real
By: Terri Schmitt PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP
Executive Director, NPACE
Is anyone else out there struggling to keep up on clinical skills not used often in practice? Some practice areas I perform every single shift in primary care, like counseling on weight loss, evaluating depression and anxiety, prescribing the trifecta of medications for severe metabolic disease, starting insulin, or even treating common communicable diseases. In these places, I feel confident and secure. However, in skills I go months without using confidence is not something I feel. Give me an 8-year-old with a busted open knee that needs sutures and I am going to need a moment to gather myself and review my plan of action.
At NPACE, we have found the same feedback from our learners about the need to continue to maintain clinical skills and knowledge. We are proud to now provide ongoing skills education, whenever and wherever you might need it, in key clinical areas. Access to learning is provided for 90 days after purchase to ensure you can go back as many times as you like in a quarter to practice or review. We are thrilled to provide learning in:
- Radiology
- Wound closure and management with Dr. Chris Hemmer
- EKG interpretation with Jen Carlquest
We invite feedback on other critical skill areas you might be interested in or reviews of these learning modules. Whatever we can continue to do to help support your health, wellness, and continued learning for practice, please let us know by commenting or contacting us through our social media. Find us on social media.
-
Feb Director Notes
From the Director
Wellness: More than just training the body
By: Terri Schmitt, Executive Director
Part of our value system at NPACE has included a focus on wellness for ourselves, our online continuing education users, and our in-person attendees. One of the ways we have done this is by exploring yoga, meditation, and meaningful time where we can focus on ourselves. As a part of this focus, we are piloting a program at an upcoming conference in Denver, Colorado where Jay Gupta, a renowned pharmacist, de-prescribing expert, and yoga teacher is going to hold a free one-day learning event. During this event, an optional addition, we will consider the health benefits of the mind-body connection and yoga nidra techniques that can be used for ourselves and taught to our patients. We are able to offer 6 CE credits with this event, in addition to the other conference CEs. The day of learning is entirely accessible to everyone regardless of ability and will be a seated day of learning practice. We are looking for attendees who would like to try this 1-day learning with us and provide feedback on the usefulness of such learning to themselves and their practice. Join us in Denver to earn some excellent pharmacology and primary care CE and try out this day of yoga learning. More information and registration can be found here.
If you need wellness on demand anywhere, you can use any of our yoga or meditation sessions found on our learning center wellness page.
Whatever we can continue to do to help support your health, wellness, and continued learning for practice, please let us know by commenting or contacting us through our social media. Find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tiktok here.
-
Jan Partner Review
2023 NPACE Partners Preview
By: Josh Plotkin, NPACE COO
Happy 2023! NPACE is excited for the upcoming year and all the learning opportunities available for Nurse Practitioners and Advanced Practice Providers. In addition to our continuing education content, NPACE is proud to work with many healthcare companies to help supplement our educational offerings both in-person and online!
In 2023, NPACE in-person conference attendees can plan on hearing from our sponsors: AstraZeneca COPD/Asthma, Bayer Women’s Health, Exact Sciences Stool DNA Screening, Neurocrine Biosciences Movement Disorders, Primary Care Education Consortium (PCEC), and many more. Sponsored programs are an excellent opportunity to learn more about a specific company’s products and resources and how they may apply to your clinical practice setting while earning additional CE credits!
NPACE in-person events also offer two days of exhibit hall time. It is a great time to network with dozens of industry companies and learn more about personal & patient wellness and employment opportunities. We highly recommend checking out our in-person conferences here to learn more about our exhibitors and sponsors.
We invite you to attend our spring or fall virtual conference, where NPACE partners such as Boehringer-Ingelheim, Med Learning Group, The National Psoriasis Foundation, and PCEC provide much of the CE content and product theater programs. Learn more about NPACE virtual programs here!
We encourage our NPACE community to keep up to date with additional partner program opportunities provided throughout the year! Many of these opportunities, including Free CE programs, dinner programs, training programs, and national webinars, are sent through our newsletters, and additional information is provided on our learning center virtual display hall partners page.
2023 promises to be an exciting year at NPACE. We look forward to all of our partners’ programs! We are thankful for their support!
-
Jan Director Notes
From the Director
NPACE 2023: An Inaugural Year in New Ways, New Places, and New Friends!
By: Terri Schmitt, Executive Director
Happy 2023 NPACErs! I am excited to write those words. For NPACE, 2023 is a year full of inaugural events, new places, and we hope many new friends! We are honored and excited to begin our 2023 journey with you. Below are a few of the unique ‘firsts’ that 2023 will bring NPACE. We hope you chose to join us in some of these exciting new experiences!
– Pharmacology events: two all-pharmacology education conferences, one in Savannah and the other in San Diego! Providing all pharmacology education is particularly important for us, given the rapidly changing world of medications and healthcare.
– Becoming more serious about wellness for ourselves and you: we are doing wellness as an additional give back at every in-person NPACE event throughout the year, as well as free wellness access on our learning center to yoga, stretching, and meditation.
– Helping novice NP educators: we are proud of our partnership with NONPF to help provide resources to novice NP educators, and we will continue to offer new ways to access this education.
– Launching state-specific CE for licensure in some states: This pilot project, launching for a few states first in 2023, will provide bundled, on-demand, continuing education to meet state licensing needs for NPs.
– We get to be in Cape Cod twice! Besides June, we are holding a unique fall 2023 event with morning workshops on topics important to NP practice such as obesity management or NP entrepreneurship. If you have ever wanted to see a New England fall, join us! Learn more about our October Cape Cod here!
– Grant-funded education! We will be launching two free grant-funded CE courses on key topics in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease in our learning management center, but we also get to work on providing education on obesity management in primary care. More to come on this! Free CE access here!
– Earn CE credit for learning mindfulness, yoga, and direct patient application: We are working to provide a free 1-day, limited seating program at our NPACE Denver conference to NPs. This event will be part of the overall conference registration. Jay Gupta, a pharmacist, and non-profit leader will lead this amazing project! More info here.
– We are going to Denver for the first time: Great city, with good access, mountains, exciting sporting events, and great food, and the conference is one of the best we have done.
– We will include our Acute Care NP brothers and sisters at the first Acute Care NP-focused Event. Coupled with a 2-day pharmacology education, we are launching our first 2-day acute care-focused NP track in Phoenix, Arizona in 2023. Look out for more to come on this!
– We are launching Bundles of the Month at a discount in our learning center: We believe that continued access to our content should extend beyond the ability to be present at a live event. If you haven’t used our learning center to find great on-demand learning in everything from suturing to full practice authority and diabetes management to dermatology.
Join us for one or all of these inaugural events in person here or check out our work on demand here. Here’s to an amazing 2023 to you! Thank you for being part of healthcare and the NPACE family!
-
NPACE COVID-19 Latest Information
NPACE continues to monitor the rapidly evolving situation related to COVID-19, including CDC recommendations and stay-at-home orders, mandatory self-quarantines for travelers, and other regulations issued at Federal, State, and Local levels.
As a result of ongoing restrictions, the following NPACE conference has been converted to a virtual live event from an in-person event:
NPACE Primary Care & Pharmacology Conference – Nashville (February 6-9)
Registrants of our canceled conference have been notified by email and received guidance on canceling travel arrangements.
As of this time, all other future NPACE conferences are still proceeding as scheduled. We appreciate your patience as we work through this rapidly developing situation nationwide and will provide continuous updates here as needed.
Travel Guidance:Given the fluidity of the situation, NPACE highly recommends that conference registrants research airline cancellation and rebooking policies before making travel arrangements, and book refundable airfare whenever possible. Registrants should also consider purchasing travel insurance, but we recommend checking with the provider to ensure that it will cover cancellations due to COVID-19. Please read all of the NPACE in-person conference policies here.
Please continue to monitor your email, the NPACE web site, and our social media channels for the latest updates. Any additional questions or concerns may be sent to us at npace@npace.org.