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Montana Nurses
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Association
Provider Newsletter: August, 2013
MNA Website Update
Please check your link to the MNA web site at www.mtnurses.org. With the recent update of the web
site, we are hearing that many of you are getting a message that the site is “under construction”, “not
available” or other error messages.
If you cannot access the new site, please email Kathy Schaefer at kathy@mtnurses.org. She can help you
navigate to the new site.
**We have updated all of the forms with this web site revision. You should now be using the new
activity documentation forms, bio/conflict of interest forms, and other related documents. So – if you
haven’t checked the site yet, please do so today!
Pam and Kathy Go To ANCC
On August 6, Kathy and Pam participated in an Accredited Approver workshop at ANCC Headquarters in
Silver Spring, MD. We met with accreditation program staff, nurse peer review leaders, and accredited
approver staff and volunteers from around the country. We reviewed criteria and accreditation program
requirements. Substantial time was spent in discussion recognition of peer reviewers, volunteers who
spend a significant amount of time and share their expertise in reviewing individual activity and provider
applications. All of us are aware of this valuable contribution to the effectiveness of the accreditation
program and are working to find appropriate ways to acknowledge this work.
We discussed the peer review process, working to ensure consistency in how applications are reviewed
from state to state. The state reviews follow exactly the same process as the accreditation reviews done
at the national level by Accreditation Appraisers. The education of national appraisers and state peer
reviewers is identical, and our standard for quality of reviews is also identical. Montana is one of the
state leaders in having a strong cadre of qualified reviewers.
End of Year Annual Report
In December, you will be receiving an email reminding you that your annual report is due to the MNA
Continuing Education office by January 31, 2013. Hopefully, you have been recording your events as
they occur on the spreadsheet provided to you at the beginning of the year. If your list is not current,
this would be a good time to begin updating it. Two related reminders:
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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1. There is no annual fee this year. As we discussed at the provider update, the annual fee amount
will be rolled in to the provider application fee rather than charged yearly.
2. We will be requesting one piece of data for our monitoring project to ensure adherence to
accreditation program criteria. That information will be included with the request for annual
report data and will also be due by January 31, 2014.
Call For Presentations for APRN Pharmacology
Conference, 2014
The MNA Pharmacology Conference for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses will be held on March 28th
and 29th, 2014. We are now accepting proposals for presentations at this conference. The content needs
to be focused on the APRN target audience. If you or someone in your organization is interested in
submitting a proposal, please contact Kathy for the proposal form. Proposals must be submitted to the
MNA office by September 1, 2013, for consideration.
Based on the above changes to Accreditation Program criteria, the MNA Continuing Education staff
Preceptor
Highlight
Convention
reviewed
Board of NursingExpert
rules related to
to the
practice of nursingMNA
in both Montana
and Alaska. To allow
The Montana Nurses Association’s annual convention will be held at the Great Northern Hotel in Helena
from October 2-4, 2013. Dr. Diana Swihart, Executive Director of the American Academy for Preceptor
Advancement, will be the featured speaker on Wednesday, October 2. She will be discussing preceptor
education, engagement, and evaluation. Following the keynote, she will facilitate a concurrent session
to address strategies and challenges in implementing preceptor roles. The complete schedule offers
three days of continuing education, as well as the opportunity to participate in decisions affecting the
future of the association. Please mark your calendars and plan to be with us! You can see the full CE
schedule and register for convention at http://www.mtnurses.org/Homepage-Category/Calendar-andEvents/2013-MNA-Annual-Convention.html
Practice Tip
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,
we are addressing how you ensure that content integrity is maintained when you develop a learning
activity.
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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There are four components to content integrity. They are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Assuring that content is based on best available evidence
Ensuring that content is free from bias or promotion
Resolving any conflict of interest
Maintaining independence from any organization providing funding or support for the activity
How do you manage this responsibility in planning an activity? How do you document evidence of your
thinking and your actions? Let’s look at each one.
Assuring that content is based on best available evidence
You might do this by using current resources and references in collecting and documenting your needs
assessment and gap analysis data. You might provide resources for speakers to use in developing the
activity as envisioned by the planning committee. You might ask the speaker to provide resources used
in developing the presentation. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the nurse planner to look at any of
these resources to determine that they are the “best available” evidence for this particular learning
activity, Do not hesitate to ask the speaker for validation if you have questions. A quick web search on
the topic may help you to validate that information is current and up-to-date. You can document
references and resources on your educational planning table.
A word of caution: some people use guidelines reflecting use of items that have been published within
the past 3-5 years. To a certain extent, there is value to that approach. However, there may be more
traditional resources (Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing, for example) that fall well outside that 35 year range and yet may be very appropriate. On the other hand, for a topic that is continually
changing, even a reference from 2 years ago may be too old. Your judgment matters!
Ensuring that content is free from bias or promotion
Bias is the tendency to prejudice a learning activity. We want learning activities to be focused on
learning, not products or services that might be purchased or used by the participants. To that end, the
learning activity must be separate from any exhibits or product promotion. There can be no commercial
logos or “advertisements” apparent to the learner during the learning experience.
Please note that this requirement is completely separate from commercial support or conflict of
interest. For example, exhibitors are not commercial support providers, yet their displays must be apart
from the learning activity. Likewise, an author of a book does not have a conflict of interest, because the
book publisher is not a commercial interest entity. That author, however, must not be allowed to
promote his/her book during the learning session.
This standard is also why employees of commercial support entities are prohibited from being speakers
of activities where the content is related to the products or services of that company. There is too much
likelihood that the speaker would bias the content in favor of the company, even if you have “rules” in
place for a speaker’s presentation.
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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Resolving any conflicts of interest
Using the information provided in the conflict if interest decision-making grid and the biographical
data/conflict of interest form, the nurse planner is accountable for identifying and addressing any
conflicts of interest. Conflict of interest (COI) is defined as involvement of a financial nature with a
commercial interest entity whose products are relevant to the topic being presented. A speaker may
identify on a biographical data/COI form that he is on the speaker’s bureau for a pharmaceutical
company. If the topic of the activity relates to drugs made by that company, a conflict of interest exists
and must be resolved in order for that person to be a speaker. Steps in the resolution process are
identified on the bio/COI form and can be checked as appropriate. If a brief explanation would be
helpful, the nurse planner can add a note to the form. That way, if MNA selects that activity file for an
audit, there would be evidence of the nurse planner’s thinking and action.
Maintaining independence from any organization providing funding or in-kind support for the activity
This is the purpose for negotiating and signing commercial support or sponsorship agreements. These
agreements stipulate that the nurse planner and the provider will maintain accountability for adherence
to accreditation program criteria. The commercial support entity or sponsor agrees to provide money or
some other kind of support for the activity and avoid comments, suggestions, or other actions that
would impinge on the right of the nurse planner and planning committee to make decisions about the
activity. The signed and dated agreements must be maintained in the activity file.
For the complete Content Integrity Standards document, please see:
http://www.mtnurses.org/Main-Menu-Categories/Continuing-Education/MNA-ApprovedProviders/Activity-Documentation-Forms/Accreditation-CE-Content-Integrity-1.pdf
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 a repeat of the webinar in May
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
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.