Online CPD just for aged care nurses

The ANF and an online training company have just launched the fruits of their partnership – a new virtual ‘aged care training room’ to help aged and community care nurses meet CPD requirements.

By Stephen Easton and Yasmin Noone

The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) has just launched the online Aged Care Training Room, which provides aged and community care nurses with the opportunity to remotely meet their continuing professional development (CPD) requirements for national registration.

The virtual ‘room’ went live last week and is accessible to anyone around Australia, or the world, who wants to further their professional nursing education online.

An annual subscription to the ANF Aged Care Training Room provides aged and community care nurses with their required CPD hours, plus a number of other CPD resources tailored to their requirements.

ANF federal education officer, Jodie Davis, said the initiative would provide aged and community care nurses in rural and remote areas with an opportunity to further both their education and career.

“Inequity exists not just in wages but in CPD opportunities for aged and community care nurses, especially those working in rural and remote areas,” Ms Davis said.

“So I think this new training room is going to be really well received by rural and remote nurses who can’t get to training. All you need is a computer and the internet and you can do the training from anywhere in the world.”

The training room currently consists of a library of more than 50 modules specific to aged care and community care nurses. Topics covered include elder abuse; advocacy; OHS; mobility dexterity; falls; rehabilitation and more.

Ms Davis said the ANF had offered nurses an online CPD system for several years, but had received numerous requests from aged care nurses that they offer more aged care specific topics.

“We had covered their mandatory competencies, but they needed some more specific courses,” she said. “They can still access the topics they want on the CPE system, but this is a one stop shop for the whole lot of their requirements.

“We would get a lot of enquiries from aged care nurses who have to keep up their accreditation like everybody else, but they were finding it hard to access good quality and affordable courses, and they were saying they needed specific thigns like falls prevention, dementia or elder abuse.”

There is also access to a learner needs analysis, an individualised learning plan and guide, and a reflective learning tool.

“Once a nurse signs up online via a subscription, they supply us with information which we then use to generate the learning plan, and we automatically enrol them in the [modules] where we think they have gaps. So [for example] if they haven’t done manual handling – that’s a mandatory competency – we would enrol them in that.”

The learner is automatically enrolled into each module and will be notified via e-mail when the next module is due for completion. Each module is paired with an assessment component that will be marked instantaneously by the website.

Modules allocated can be substituted through self-enrolment in any of the modules in the library catalogue.

“…We can give managers administrator access so they can see what all of their staff are doing,” Ms Davis said.

“And we can incorporate specific workplace policies from different employers into the training, like their fire and evacuation training, so that all the staff at the organisation which are doing the online training are all doing the same training.”

The online ‘room’ is the result of a partnership between online learning experts, Moving ON Training (MOT), and the nurses’ union.

MOT director, Deb Shearman, said the ANF Aged Care Training Room will provide aged and community care nurses with the depth and breadth of CPD activity and other essential resources to ensure they have the ongoing knowledge and skill base to deliver the best possible care to older Australians.

“In developing the Aged Care Training Room were looking for a partner who shared our commitment to the ongoing education and development of the aged and community care workforce and had the experience and track record in developing and delivering aged care online education,” Ms Shearman said.

“We commenced in 2004 and have developed over 50 aged care specific online education modules, delivered 180,000 module enrolments and to date our results from over 10,000 anonymous module evaluations consistently return a 95 per cent plus satisfaction rating.

“Our education modules and other resources are developed by nurses for nurses and our focus is always on respecting the rights and individual needs of older Australians.”

Tags: anf, continuing-professional-development, cpd, education, mot, nursing-and-midwifery-board-of-australia, ohs, training,

5 thoughts on “Online CPD just for aged care nurses

  1. This is a fantastic opportunity for staff development !!
    i would also like to offer my services as a trainer in the area of Swallowing, Oral Care and Communication for residents in all stages of life including palliative care. With kind regards
    Gail #0412906241

  2. The best valued nursing education I have seen anywhere is ifolio.com.au

  3. I am an RN worrking in aged Care for the past 8 years and I am planning to do my CPDs ON LINE COVERING MAINLY AGED CARE TOPICS pLEASE ASSIST

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