Courses by Credit Type

The perioperative nurse is responsible for collaborating with team members to ensure the safety of the patient as well as colleagues during the positioning process. This program focuses on correct patient positioning to avoid patient injury to the respiratory, circulatory, neuromuscular, and integumentary systems.

This continuing education activity will describe the unique challenges associated with patient positioning during robotic surgical procedures and traditional solutions to steep Trendelenburg positioning. Best practices for patient positioning during robotic surgical procedures will be outlined, and product selection criteria for positioning equipment and devices for use during robotic surgery will be described.

Understanding the evidence for protective surgical glove use and hand health is a critical role for perioperative professionals. An overview of the trends in best practice for optimal surgical glove use will be discussed as well as the requirements and evidence-based practices that support these practice trends. Key activities perioperative nurses and other professionals should engage in to promote correct surgical glove use and hand health will also be discussed.

This program defines the characteristics of hazardous drugs, identifies groups of HCWs at greatest risk, and describes potential routes and effects of occupational exposure. Recommendations offered by government agencies and professional associations for the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) are summarized, focusing on the proper use of gloves and gowns when handling chemotherapy drugs.

Review the problem of retained surgical items (RSI), including their economic and clinical implications. Assessing human factors, creating a safety, quality culture and how you, as a leader, can help reduce adverse events such as RSIs is also discussed. Strategies to reduce the incidence of RSIs and promote positive patient outcomes, including the role of adjunct technology, are outlined.

Enhanced recovery protocols provide evidence-based guidance on best practices providers can use before, during, and after surgery to accelerate a patient’s recovery. This course will discuss strategies for enhancing patient recovery following surgical procedures to deliver quality care, improve outcomes, and reduce overall costs.

Review the process of normal wound healing, as well as the consequences of delayed healing, and the techniques and products used to promote successful healing. The pathogenesis and consequences of adhesion formation are also explained in this course, followed by a discussion of the methods used to prevent adhesions.

This program traces the evolution of methods of surgical hemostasis, reviews the risk factors for perioperative bleeding, highlights the steps in the coagulation cascade, and details the properties, mechanisms of action, components, and safety considerations for several categories of hemostatic, sealant, and adhesive agents.

In 2018 the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and in 2017 the American College of Cardiology (ACC) in partnership with the American Heart Association (AHA) and Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) released guidelines focused upon the diagnosis and treatment of syncope. This course reviews the step-by-step approach outlined in the guidelines that should be performed for syncope patients of unexplained cause or cardiac-suspected syncope, including best-yield testing and the use of newer technology to detect cardiac-caused syncope.

There are several therapeutic modalities available today that either use the body’s natural thermoregulatory mechanisms to relieve pain, encourage healing, or enhance the body’s ability to maintain a normal core temperature. Therefore, nurses and other health- care professionals must remain aware of the use of localized temperature therapy as an effective treatment modality.

Nurses and infection preventionists are balancing staff and patient safety, prevention of hospital-acquired infections, and the ever-changing regulatory environment. This program focuses on isolation gowns because they are a critical element of PPE, in that they prevent staff and patient exposure to infectious diseases and improve patient outcomes.

This program identifies concerns currently associated with intraoperative transfusion and describes effective PBM strategies, including the use of topical hemostatic agents. The importance of using a validated intraoperative bleeding scale to assess and compare the efficacy of these agents is emphasized.

This program is designed to increase knowledge of the basics of skin health and its impact for people with incontinence. The activity will provide practical knowledge for clinicians on the care of fragile skin as well as including factors that influence skin health, how to maintain a balanced microbiome, what happens when the microbiome becomes unbalanced, and how to treat conditions related to declines in skin health.

Fires in the operating room can occur in a patient’s airway, face, body surface, surgical wound, and perineal area – potentially resulting in severe pain, disfigurement and, in some cases, death. The purpose of this educational program is to review the components of the fire triangle and to describe measures to prevent operating room fires. Actions to take if a fire occurs as well as considerations for a fire safety plan will also be discussed.

While the hazards of exposure to surgical smoke in the operating room are well documented, barriers to consistent use of smoke evacuation technologies exist. This course features Dr. Lisa Hunsicker, a surgeon champion for surgical smoke evacuation, who discusses her role in advocating for smoke-free ORs in her facility and in the legislature.

This continuing education activity will provide a historical review of the evolution of the use of surgical gloves as a protective barrier. The impact of occupational exposure on healthcare workers will be presented. The implications of double gloving in the surgical practice setting will be discussed, including approaches to implement a change in practice and the identification of perceived barriers.

The intraoperative transfusion of blood and blood products is associated with increased healthcare costs and negative patient outcomes. To address these concerns and limit unnecessary transfusions, a variety of patient blood management strategies are available, including the use of topical hemostatic agents.

Management of bleeding is an important part of any invasive procedure, and a wide variety of topical adjunctive hemostatic agents are available to supplement the surgeon’s application of conventional approaches to this critical outcome. This course begins with a description of the components of whole blood and the natural process of hemostasis, followed by an explanation of where topical hemostats act within this sequence of events.

This education activity reviews the indications, contraindications, and methodology of enteral feedings and highlights the role of the multidisciplinary team in the care of patients requiring enteral nutrition. The types of feeding formulations will be discussed along with routes of delivery, common complications, and ways to mitigate these risks.

This educational activity provides an overview of gender and racial/ethnic musculoskeletal disparities, the relationship between obesity, osteoarthritis, and other comorbidities, and the potential impact of the AMA recognition of obesity as a disease. Also discussed are cultural and health literacy considerations of the patients most at risk for disability from osteoarthritis – obese African American and Hispanic women.