Continuing Education for Nurse Practitioners: Delivering the Support You Need

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Like many healthcare providers, nurse practitioners must complete continuing education (CE) as an element of their professional responsibility and to maintain their license. CE is often part of obtaining or maintaining national certification and a foundational component of remaining current with best clinical practices, and is critical to professional growth and the provision of safe and effective care.A lot of thought goes into the creation of continuing education for nurse practitioners. Everything from the selection of a meaningful topic to the medium in which it will be received intersect for an optimal learning experience. If all goes well, CE feels less like a professional burden and more like a professional blessing.If you’re an administrator in the healthcare environment, you’re going to want to set your team up for success. Any nurse practitioner reading this may find it helpful for identifying high-quality continuing education.

Goals of Continuing Education

Every nursing professional graduates school, passes their certification boards, and enters the workforce with the minimum acceptable knowledge and skill to perform their job, and they accept the responsibility to continue learning. Healthcare is an ever-evolving field that can, at times, feel unforgiving as familiar practices phase out and new methodologies develop. Filling those gaps and keeping pace with an evolving field by continuously offering current evidence-based information is the main goal of continuing education. Continuing education for NPs assures an understanding and application of current medical practices that, in addition to supporting the best care possible, can also:

• Improve knowledge and skills
• Open opportunities for advancement or specialization
• Shelter from liability
• Assist in maintaining certification

Finding High-Quality CE

Continuing education is held to strict standards, maintained through accreditation by organizations like ANCC for nurse practitioners and AMA for physicians. Content creators are selected for their expertise and are often known as leaders in their field, allowing organizations like Premiere to offer a diverse portfolio of industry-leading continuing education to professionals. The content itself is evaluated for the successful achievement of learning outcomes and alignment with clinical evidence to address common knowledge gaps and opportunities for reinforcement.

Notable Gaps in Nursing Knowledge

Across every role in healthcare there are common themes of knowledge gaps that need to be constantly refreshed and updated. Continuing education for nurse practitioners can be as diverse as the roles have become.  

• Health disparities across the United States are expanding, and creating opportunities for healthcare providers to mitigate these disparities is important. Courses like Anti-Discriminatory Practice as Cultural Competence with LGBTQIA+ Patient Populations created by Premiere’s Brian Masciadrelli, and Implicit Bias Training for Healthcare by Megan Arbour, can expand health disparity definitions and offer greater insight into the prevalence of this national challenge.
• Acute and chronic pain management is a very important topic. As the healthcare industry looks to curb the negative impact of control substances used in the management of pain, instructional content like Chronic Pain: Therapies, Treatment, and Management Options by Premiere’s Mary Ellen Biggerstaff provide an in-depth overview of chronic pain management guidelines.
• Closely related to the topic of pain management is the subject of drug diversion by healthcare workers. Safe Opiate Prescribing by Premiere offers excellent information on the recognition and response to impairment in the workplace for all healthcare workers.
• Compassion fatigue and burnout are impacting the healthcare workforce like never before, and nobody is shouldering that burden more than nurses. Prevention begins with education, and Burnout, Chronic Stress, and Suicidality Among Nurses by Premiere’s Megan Arbour will readily equip nurses with information about the causes and negative implications related to burnout.
• The DEA’s new controlled substance continuing education requirement is also a topic all prescribing nurse practitioners need to be aware of. Reinforcing concepts related to responsible prescription practices is an integral component of a nurse practitioner's management of their patients.
• Wound care is an ongoing challenge for healthcare professionals, and treatment of conditions like pressure ulcers are both costly to treat and an important nursing care quality indicator.  Wound Care: Pressure Ulcers 101 can refresh best practices and keep standards of care high.

Formats for CE

CE opportunities typically take two forms: online learning or in-person classes. Depending on considerations like audience, accessibility to the subject matter, and the need for ongoing education, one format may be more appropriate than the other.

Online Learning

Online learning has exploded in recent years, and with no shortage of competing responsibilities the convenience and reliability of learning online are hard to beat. Online courses often include on-demand learning that is self-paced, frequently updated to reflect best practices, and cost-effective for administration.Tracking coursework is also easier to manage, especially when submission of completion is required for things like certification renewal. Many states require course completions to be reported to a CE broker, and online training makes it easy to stay compliant.  

In-Person Learning

For some learners, there is nothing like sitting in a class for some face-to-face learning from a live instructor. While this allows for an interactive learning environment where questions and feedback can be traded, it does result in certain limitations of accessibility and convenience. In-person learning is limited to a selected date and time which can become challenging given the other responsibilities of working professionals, as well as being costly to travel to and attend. Independent of the format, nursing leadership needs to be supportive of their staff engaging in continuing education. Too often, learning opportunities are missed because staff simply aren’t given an opportunity to participate. Supporting continuing education for nurse practitioners requires intentional efforts to make time available for learning.

Let’s Support Continuing Education for Nurse Practitioners

Continuing education for nurse practitioners is a critical aspect of their professional role. From keeping up to date with best practices for optimal patient outcomes to supporting their own professional growth and development, CE is a vital part of empowering healthcare workers to provide the best care they possibly can. Equally as critical is supporting nurse practitioners in their ability to participate in CE. This means choosing content that is meaningful, delivering in a way that is accessible, and providing the time to learn. And because continuing education is just that—continuing—Premiere’s Unlimited Nursing CE Subscription is an ideal way to keep staff current, informed, and compliant with new developments and industry standards in healthcare.