Continuing Education (CE) class catalog

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: Foundations for the Future: Lessons from the History of Nursing Advocacy

Description

The nursing profession in the U.S. has a history of advocacy deeply intertwined with health and social justice movements. Nurses have leveraged their trusted voice to contribute to critical societal transformations, addressing systemic issues like racism, gender inequity, and economic disparities. This course explores nurse-led advocacy efforts that have influenced advancements in nursing, healthcare, and broader social progress.

Building on this legacy, the course will also equip participants with the historical context and lessons needed to address contemporary challenges in healthcare. Nurses have long understood that collective action is more powerful than individual efforts, and this course will provide practical tools to continue this tradition of collective patient advocacy. By honoring nursing's social justice legacy, participants will understand the transformative potential of the profession when nurses unite around a common cause to drive change in today’s healthcare environment.

Part 2: Safety in Numbers: Two Decades of California's Nurse-to-Patient Ratio Law

Description

This comprehensive continuing education course examines California's groundbreaking nurse-to-patient ratio law as we mark over twenty years since its historic implementation in 2004. This landmark legislation not only transformed patient care delivery in California but ignited a powerful national and international movement for safe staffing standards, inspiring nurses worldwide to advocate for similar protections. This California model has become the gold standard, inspiring campaigns from Maine to Australia, demonstrating how organized nurses can successfully advocate for their patients and win concrete improvements in patient care standards.

The course analyzes twenty years of research and lived experience demonstrating how mandated minimum staffing ratios have saved countless patient lives by promoting safe, competent, therapeutic, and effective nursing care. Participants will examine the political and economic forces that shaped the law's passage, including the pivotal role of organized nursing advocacy in overcoming healthcare industry opposition.

Drawing from two decades of implementation experience, the course highlights crucial lessons learned about the protective effect of the ratio throughout decades of corporate restructuring and technological developments. This course examines collective patient advocacy strategies central to the law's effectiveness.

Special emphasis will be placed on documented improvements in patient safety measures, how collective patient advocacy has amplified these outcomes, and the ways in which the California model has strengthened the global case for nurse-to-patient ratio laws.

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: Demystifying Artificial Intelligence: How A.I. works, how it fails, and what it means for nurses

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.

Part 2: How Financialization is Reshaping the Hospital Industry: What Nurses Need to Know

Description

This course will examine the increasing influence of Wall Street in health care and the parallel trend of hospital systems prioritizing their own financial investments over the provision of patient care. We will investigate the causes of these trends and their consequences for patients and nurses.

We will also assess how the increasing influence of financial actors intersects with other key health care trends, including monopolization in the hospital industry, the nurse staffing crisis, increased barriers to care and worsening health outcomes. We will conclude by exploring how nurses can respond to these trends and advocate for their patients and professions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Course Description

This course will examine the increasing influence of Wall Street in health care and the parallel trend of hospital systems prioritizing their own financial investments over the provision of patient care. We will investigate the causes of these trends and their consequences for patients and nurses.

We will also assess how the increasing influence of financial actors intersects with other key health care trends, including monopolization in the hospital industry, the nurse staffing crisis, increased barriers to care and worsening health outcomes. We will conclude by exploring how nurses can respond to these trends and advocate for their patients and professions.

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.

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.