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The course will be discontinued on April 15, 2019. Please plan to finish the course by April 14th if you wish to earn credit for it.

Around 600,000 new or recurrent cases of venous thromboembolism, a term that includes deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), occur in the United States annually. As many as 25% of patients with a pulmonary embolus die of a sudden death with no previous symptoms. Thirty-day survival rates for DVT are as high as 94.5% although if pulmonary embolus is present, with or without a DVT, the survival rate decreases to 55.6%. Venous thromboembolism contributes to between 100,000 and 180,000 deaths annually. It's probable that more cases occur but remain undiagnosed. In a variety of settings, healthcare professionals are likely to encounter patients with or at risk for venous thromboembolism. They should understand and educate patients about the risk factors for this potentially fatal, but largely preventable, disorder.

Atrial fibrillation is a major health, social, and economic problem affecting approximately 2.7 to 6.1 million Americans. It’s becoming increasingly common as the population ages, with nearly 4% of the population over age 60 and 8% of people older than 80 affected. AF may be described by the ventricular response or by duration. A common complication of AF is stroke. Depending on the circumstances, AF can be treated with medications, such as anticoagulants and antiarrhythmics; cardioversion; and radiofrequency ablation with pacemaker. Patients undergoing cardioversion must be adequately anticoagulated when possible to prevent thromboembolism. Healthcare providers as a team should be able to recognize this common dysrhythmia, understand the etiologies and pathogenesis, and collaborate to educate patients about treatment options so they may make sound, evidence-based decisions about their treatment.

The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is used throughout the U.S. in hospital stroke centers. The Joint Commission requires all patients who receive tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) to be assessed using a full NIHSS. The NIHSS assesses stroke severity. Nurses and other members of the healthcare team can track the patient’s response to treatment by monitoring trends in the NIHSS. Nurses are trained to perform the NIHSS for monitoring patients after a stroke, specifically those at risk for worsening neurological status. With proper training in use of NIHSS, little variance should exist in results among nurses. Education is essential for improved reliability and increased effective communication regarding stroke treatment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that nearly 34 million adults in the U.S. smoke, and 16 million have a serious illness attributable to their smoking habit. With nearly half a million U.S. deaths attributed to smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke annually, the CDC identifies smoking as the number one cause of preventable disease, disability, and death. This course provides an overview of the need for smoking cessation and components of a successful program. Working as an interprofessional team, helping patients navigate the behavioral stages of smoking cessation, and smoking cessation aids are also discussed.

Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability and death in the U.S. Stroke is the result of a blocked or ruptured blood vessel that deprives brain cells of oxygen, resulting in tissue death within minutes. Brain cells die every minute during a stroke, which places the patient at risk for permanent brain damage or death. There are two types of stroke: Ischemic and hemorrhagic. It is essential to immediately identify which type of stroke is occurring. Treatment and management of an ischemic stroke is vastly different than treatment and management of a hemorrhagic stroke.

What is a healthy weight? Multiple factors impact our body weight and size, yet as healthcare providers, we often focus more on the scale readout rather than the behaviors that influence our patients’ weight and health. This module discusses the psychological and physical issues facing those with obesity, along with the impact of chronic dieting and weight bias on health. It also provides tools, such as tips on motivational interviewing, non-diet health goal setting, for the provider to use in clinical practice, and briefly reviews traditional weight management guidelines.