Continuing Education (CE) class catalog
Click on a calendar item above or scroll below to learn more about a course and register.
CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.
Planet Over Profits and Preparing for the Next Pandemic
This is a two-part, in-person CE Class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (6 hours of CE credits). If you're a UC nurse, an extra hour will be available from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Participants must be in attendance all day to receive the full 6 CEU CE credits, even if they have taken one of the classes prior to the sign-up date.
Part 1: Planet Over Profits: The Health Impacts of Environmental Crisis & What Nurses Can Do
Description
This course examines the impacts of human-driven disruption of the natural environment on human health and health care, from devastating extreme weather events to the spread of novel infectious diseases and increased exposure to toxic pollutants.
The class will explore how climate change impacts the health of patients, the working conditions of nurses, and public health. We will consider how and why environmental health risks are increasing for everyone while disproportionately impacting under-resourced communities. We will also look at how nurses and other health justice advocates can and already are responding to environmental crisis and discuss strategies for building a just transition to a more sustainable and healthy future.
Part 2: Preparing for the Next Pandemic: Advocacy for Robust Infection Prevention Protections for Nurses and Patients
Description
Scientists estimate that the likelihood of another novel pathogen turning into a worldwide pandemic grows each year. Preparedness is essential to ensure the safety of nurses, other health care workers, and patients. The devastation and loss that has come from health care employers' failures to prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be repeated. But the reality is that many health care employers are not only failing to prepare; they are neglecting essential measures to prevent transmission of pathogens seen in health care facilities every day — from TB to MRSA, influenza, C diff, and more. Each day, one in 31 U.S. patients contracts at least one infection associated with their health care. Health care-associated infections rose significantly early in the Covid-19 pandemic and rates continue to be high. Nurses and other health care workers are also at risk — nearly seven in ten nurses have sustained at least one infection at work.
This class will apply the scientific foundation for infection prevention to nurses' workplaces. We will discuss the steps that need to be taken to ensure that health care facilities are prepared to protect nurses and patients from known pathogens and the next pandemic.
Environments of harm: How health care facility buildings can endanger patient and nurse health & safety in a changing climate
Description
Hospitals and other health care settings should be places of refuge and healing in which nurses play a vital role in providing care to patients. But the reality is that nurses and patients can face hazards associated with poorly maintained and aging hospital infrastructure, including waterborne pathogens, poor air quality and ventilation, extreme temperatures, and slips, trips, and falls. Human-induced climate change is only amplifying those hazards through increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heatwaves, winter storms, and hurricanes, as well as the increased emergence of infectious diseases. Increasing extreme weather events and other emergencies can disrupt critical power and water supplies, damage hospital infrastructure, and overwhelm and prevent health care systems from delivering lifesaving care when facilities are not prepared.
This class will investigate building-related hazards that can impact the health and safety of nurses and patients, including water and air quality, the safety of the physical environment, and disaster preparedness. We will discuss the measures needed to ensure that health care facilities provide a safe care environment for nurses and patients.
Critical Limits: The Case for Safe Patient Limits in U.S. Hospitals
Course Description
This continuing education course explores the impact of legislation that guarantees minimum, mandatory registered nurse to patient limits on patient safety and nursing practice in U.S. hospitals. Focusing on the success of California's 2004 legislation, the course demonstrates how safe registered nurse staffing ratios can improve patient outcomes, enhance the quality of care, and support better working conditions for nurses.
Through research and real-world examples, participants will learn about the political, economic, and advocacy efforts that have shaped the movement for safe staffing in the U.S. The course highlights the power of collective patient advocacy and how organized nurses have driven these critical changes. It also examines the global movement for safe staffing, showing how the lessons learned in California have inspired similar campaigns around the world, strengthening the case for safe patient limits everywhere.
Reevaluating Magnet Recognition: Impacts on Nursing Practice and Professional Autonomy
Course Description
This course examines the effects of Magnet status designation on nursing practice, with a particular focus on how the models of care, leadership approaches, and management styles promoted by Magnet recognition impact the registered nurse's ability to exercise independent professional judgment and advocate effectively for patients. Through a review of relevant literature, participants will explore how the resources devoted to Magnet designation could be more effectively utilized to support direct care staff and improve staffing levels. The course will also address how Magnet status, while often presented as a mark of nursing excellence, functions more as a management credential. This distinction raises important questions about the true priorities of Magnet programs and their potential to divert attention and resources away from the needs of frontline nursing staff.
Planet Over Profits: The Health Impacts of Environmental Crisis & What Nurses Can Do
Course Description
This course examines the impacts of human-driven disruption of the natural environment on human health and health care, from devastating extreme weather events to the spread of novel infectious diseases and increased exposure to toxic pollutants.
The class will explore how climate change impacts the health of patients, the working conditions of nurses, and public health. We will consider how and why environmental health risks are increasing for everyone while disproportionately impacting under-resourced communities. We will also look at how nurses and other health justice advocates can and already are responding to environmental crisis and discuss strategies for building a just transition to a more sustainable and healthy future.
Partnering with our Patients: Nurses, Worker Power, and Health Justice
Course Description
We know there is a strong correlation between unionization and improved health outcomes for workers. For nurses, this connection can also positively impact their patients. This course will analyze how union nurses have partnered with patients to respond to a radically changing healthcare system and economy. We will examine the growth of RNs’ collective power through decades of organizing and how these struggles have improved the health and welfare of nurses, patients, and communities across the country. We will also look at the broader history of unions in the U.S., examine current debates about the future of workers and unions, and identify reforms that would further empower nurses in the fight for workplace health and safety, high-quality patient care, and health justice in our communities.
Demystifying Artificial Intelligence: How A.I. works, how it fails, and what it means for nurses
Course Description
Nurses regularly embrace worker-centric technologies that complement bedside skills and improve quality of care for patients. Tech companies and health care employers say that new A.I. technologies will improve patient outcomes and decrease job strain for healthcare workers, but many of the claims about the safety, effectiveness, and fairness of A.I. are unsubstantiated.
This class will help nurses separate hype from reality by shedding light on how A.I. works, what its inherent limitations are, and what the potential impacts are for patient health and safety. The course will examine the implications of artificial intelligence and automated technologies for the nursing profession, quality of patient care, and health equity.
This class is a follow-up to “A.I. 101” from 2024; however, A.I. 101 is not a prerequisite for this class.
Social Justice and Patient Advocacy
Course Description
Every day, registered nurses see how social injustice impacts the health and wellbeing of our patients. We advocate for our patients and ourselves at the bedside, in the workplace, and in our communities so that we all have the best chance to live healthy lives.
This class will explore the connections between racial justice, gender justice, and health justice. Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of the ways that injustice operates in our workplaces and communities, and how structural racism and gender oppression affects nurses, patients, and communities. We will learn how our intersecting fights for racial, gender, economic, healthcare, environmental, and global justice are the building blocks for a more equitable and sustainable world. Lastly, we will identify ways nurses can confront and overcome these systemic issues within their facilities and beyond.