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Montana Nurses
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Association
Provider Newsletter: September, 2013
Nurse Planner Webinar Series Scheduled
MNA is working once again with the Ohio Nurses Association to co-provide a series of webinars – this
time focused on the nurse planner in an approved provider unit. Session 1 will focus on roles,
responsibilities, and accountability of the nurse planner within the approved provider unit and the ANCC
accreditation system. Session 2 will address the nurse planner’s role in planning, implementing, and
evaluating learning activities. Session 3 will cover how the nurse planner deals with challenging
situations and how the nurse planner collaborates with the primary nurse planner and others in
implementing learning activities within the context of the provider unit goals and outcome measures.
Presenters for the sessions will be Pam Dickerson, PhD, RN-BC, Director of Continuing Education at
MNA, and Stephanie Clubbs, MSN, RN-BC, CNS, Chair of the Continuing Education Approver Council at
the Ohio Nurses Association.
The schedule is:
Session
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Option 1 date and time
Oct. 8 @ 11 am MT; 9 am AK
Nov. 5 @ 8 am MT; 6 am AK
Dec. 3 @ 8 am MT; 6 am AK
Option 2 date and time
Oct. 15 @ 8 am MT; 6 am AK
Nov. 6 @ 11 am MT; 9 am AK
Dec. 4 @ 11 am MT; 9 am AK
You may register for one, two, or all three sessions. The registration fee is $15 per person per webinar.
To register, please go to http://www.ohnurses.org/events/
MNA Convention – Right Around the Corner!
The Montana Nurses Association’s annual convention will be held at the Great Northern Hotel in Helena
from October 2-4, 2013. October 2 is a full day of continuing education learning opportunities, with the
theme being “Leadership At All Levels”. October 3 and 4 will be a mix of continuing education and House
of Delegates sessions. If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time! Please visit
http://www.mtnurses.org/Homepage-Category/Calendar-and-Events/2013-MNA-AnnualConvention.html.
Mark your calendars now for October 1-3, 2014. Those are the dates for next year’s convention, where
the theme will be “Nurses As Key Partners on the Healthcare Team”. We are thrilled that our featured
speaker will be Kathy Chappell, MSN, RN, Director of Accreditation at ANCC! We will be looking for
Montana Nurses Association is accredited as an approver of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
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concurrent session presentations highlighting Interprofessional collaboration. Please consider
submitting a proposal for the planning committee’s consideration!
Submitting Your Provider Application
Several of you have provider applications due in 2014. Here is a review of our process:
1. Six months prior to your provider expiration date, you will receive an email from Kathy advising
you that it is time to submit your eligibility form and begin work on your provider application.
2. You will be asked to schedule a conference call time with Kathy and Pam to review the criteria
requirements and answer any questions you have about preparing your application.
3. Your application is due electronically at the MNA office 3 months prior to your expiration date.
Please note that the expiration date is NOT your due date! The three month interval is required
to allow peer reviewers adequate time to complete their analysis of your application and
request additional material, if necessary, to validate your adherence to criteria.
If extenuating circumstances, such as illness of the primary nurse planner, will impact your ability to
complete your provider application on time, please notify Kathy immediately.
Monthly Office Hours: Do We Need to Change?
For almost a year, we have been offering “office hours” on the first Wednesday of each month. This is an
open time for anyone to call in to talk with Kathy and Pam about questions, issues, or other items
related to your provider units. Participants may be on the call for 3-5 minutes to get their particular
agenda item addressed, or may stay on the call to learn from others’ comments. In the first several
months, we had a number of people engaged on each call. The number has decreased significantly – it
may be because of the wonderful summer weather that has had all of us wanting to be outdoors!
However, in the interest of best use of time and resources to meet your needs, we would appreciate
your feedback on this process.
Do you find the “office hours” concept valuable? Is the time not conducive to your participation? Would
you rather address your own provider unit’s issues privately rather than in a public venue? Have you had
difficulty accessing the “Go-To-Meeting” portal?
Part of our evaluation process for our approver unit is to assess our responsiveness to your needs. Your
feedback will help us think about whether we should continue the “office hours” option or whether
changes need to be made. Please email Pam or Kathy with your feedback comments.
Practice Tip: Planning for Outcomes
Peer reviewers and the MNA CE staff are continually collecting data to identify learning needs of nurse
planners and other key personnel in approved provider units. Every month in this section, we will
highlight one area related to your provider unit and/or development of learning activities. This month,
Montana Nurses Association is accredited as an approver of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
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we are addressing how you use needs assessment and gap analysis data to determine your outcome for
learning activities and how those learning activities support the outcomes for your provider unit.
It’s hard to look for outcomes when you don’t know what you’re looking for! Outcomes have to be
planned – they give you a target, and then you can collect evidence to demonstrate that you’ve arrived
at your destination.
Planning for Outcomes – Your Learning Activities
Determining outcomes for learning activities can only be done when you know what your learners need
and why they need it. Conducting a thoughtful and specific needs assessment is the first step in this
process. Needs assessments should be focused on the target audience for this learning activity. A
generalized needs assessment may provide some overall guidance for your educational plan, but a
focused needs assessment will help you hone in on the specific reason a particular learning activity is
relevant to the target audience.
Once you know the target audience and what the needs assessment data shows, you are ready to begin
your gap analysis. The gap analysis identifies where learners are NOW (the current state) and where
they should be (the ideal state). For example, you are planning a learning activity for nurses in labor and
delivery. You know that the Association for Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nursing
(AWHONN) has recently released new guidelines for care of an expectant mother in premature labor
because the nurse manager has asked you to develop a class on the new guidelines. When you asked
the manager what result she wanted from the education, she said “I want every patient to be treated
using the revised plan of care that we developed based on the new guidelines”. Your survey of the
nurses who work in labor and delivery at your hospital showed that 96% of them had received a copy of
the new guidelines and had read them. The nurses stated that they were most concerned about how to
implement the guidelines with patients who were not following the revised plan of care.
Is there a gap in knowledge? No – the nurses are familiar with the new guidelines.
Is there a gap in skills? No – the nurses know how to implement the new guidelines.
Is there a gap in practice? Yes – the nurses need help in developing strategies to assist patients in
adhering to the revised plan of care.
What is the desired outcome? The nurse will implement the suggested strategies in 100% of premature
labor patients. Can you monitor and measure this outcome? Absolutely. Further, the organization can
evaluate the impact of this new plan of care on healthy outcomes for both mothers and babies. Your
educational intervention, then, is not a “class on the new guidelines” as requested by the nurse
manager – it’s a workshop, case study analysis, simulation experience, or some other active learning
process to build the nurses’ practice skills in addressing nonadherence.
Planning for Outcomes – Your Provider Unit
Your provider unit is required to have goals – what do you want to achieve? As you develop goals, think
about your desired achievements in relation to your organization. What is the mission and purpose of
Montana Nurses Association is accredited as an approver of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
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the organization? How does your work as a provider unit support the mission and purpose of the
organization? It is important for you to have goals and outcome measures that reflect your relevance to
the organization.
Once you have developed goals, you then select outcome measures – the metrics you will evaluate
periodically in order to track your progress in achieving your goals. As an example, a goal of your
organization is to ensure that nurses have resources to continue their learning so they can provide
quality patient care. The related goal for your provider unit is to offer a variety of learning options to
meet learners’ requests for resources they can access more easily. Your outcome measure will be
diversity of learning opportunities. In reviewing last year’s data, you found that 96% of the activities
offered to your learners were classroom based, and 4% were enduring materials – all were paper/pen
independent studies. You met with your provider unit team and decided that in the upcoming year, your
specific goal was to provide at least 30% of the learning activities in different modalities than classroom.
In a brainstorming session, a plan was developed to have at least 10% of the learning activities
developed as individual paper/pen studies, 10% web based, and 10% audiocasts that learners could
download to their smart devices.
Do you have a measurable goal? Yes.
Do you have an outcome measure that will allow you to collect data related to goal achievement? Yes.
Will you be able to provide evidence to administration that your department is contributing to the
mission of the organization? Absolutely!
Upcoming Activities
Office Hours: Offered the first Wednesday of each month from 11am to 12 pm AKDT and 1:00 pm to
2:00 pm MDT. This is an open opportunity for you to call in with questions or items for discussion. Kathy
will send reminders, along with call-in information.
October 2-4, 2013 – MNA Convention – 3 days of continuing education, including presentations from
some of your approved provider colleagues! See the link on the MNA web site at
http://www.mtnurses.org/Homepage-Category/Calendar-and-Events/2013-MNA-AnnualConvention.html for the CE schedule and registration information.
November 7th, 2013 – Integrating New Graduates into your Organization Webinar: Effectively support
managers and educators in developing strategies to ease the transition for new nurses into the clinical
practice environment. This is essentially a repeat of the webinar originally offered in May of 2013, so if
you participated in that one, you don’t need to attend again – although you’re welcome to do so.
Montana Nurses Association is accredited as an approver of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
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December 3rd, 2013 – Developing Critical Thinking Skills Webinar: This session is focused on ways to
support new graduates in their development of critical thinking skills. Components of critical thinking
are explored, with examples to relate these skills to the practice setting.
January 26th, 2014 – Transition to Practice: To provide tips, tools and resources to enable the newly
licensed registered nurse to effectively transition from student to engaged professional.
March 28th and 29th, 2014 – APRN Pharmacology Conference, Helena
May 19, 2014 – Alaska Provider Update - Anchorage
May 22, 2014 – Montana Provider Update – Helena
October -3, 2014 – MNA Annual Convention – Theme: Nurses As Key Partners on the Healthcare Team
Other events will be scheduled as needed. Please let us know if you have a suggested topic!
Contact Information
Pam Dickerson, PhD, RN-BC, Director of Continuing Education
pam@mtnurses.org
1-406-465-9126
Kathy Schaefer, CE Specialist
kathy@mtnurses.org
1-406-442-6710
Montana Nurses Association is accredited as an approver of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.