School of Nursing’s online pharmacotherapy course simplifies process for APN prescriber certification

In an age where the thrust of education is accessibility to learning—anytime, anywhere—experts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing have been working with campus colleagues to offer an online continuing nursing education (CNE) course that prepares advanced practice nurses (APNs) to prescribe drugs.

Steve Douglas, MSN, RN, senior outreach specialist at the SoN, has teamed up with Clinical Associate Professor Mary Jo Willis, MS, APRN, BC, APNP, and collaborators from the School of Pharmacy to assist APNs in becoming certified by the State of Wisconsin to prescribe drugs.

“Pharmacotherapy for the Primary Care Provider,” is designed for APNs—nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified nurse midwives, or certified registered nurse anesthetists. The course provides the foundational information necessary for an APN to become an effective nurse prescriber.

The strength of the Web CNE course lies in its accessibility and flexibility: Participants can take modules in the order they wish and at the time they so choose. The one stipulation, as mandated by the State of Wisconsin, is that the participants complete the course within a three-year period.

After completing the 47 contact hours required by the online course (the state’s minimal requirement is 45 contact hours), with additional criteria required by the state’s Department of Regulation & Licensing, APNs will be granted advanced practice nurse prescriber (APNP) certification to independently issue prescription orders.

Pharmacotherapy prototype

Douglas, who has collaborated with Mike Pitterle, associate professor of pharmacy, and Al Hanson, associate dean of pharmacy at the School of Pharmacy, acts as continuing education coordinator for the outreach course, adapting the CNE version from its prototype—a pharmacotherapy course for credit.

“I make sure the course works as an online offering, meets the American Nurses Credentialing Center accreditation standards and attracts students. Mike, Al and I have collaborated on many iterations of the course—videotapes, CD ROMs and now Web delivery—since 1996. Pharmacy delivers most of the content while Mary Jo Willis personalizes it for advanced practice nurses and puts it in the context of the realities of their practice settings.”

Willis, instructor for the online course, is well versed in necessary core contents from a nurse’s perspective. Like Douglas, she has collaborated with pharmacy faculty to teach advanced practice nurses the three-credit pharmacotherapy course, which applies drug use to the treatment of disease.

The CNE version provides the same content and testing as the credit version, but does not include live discussion. In the CNE course, Willis fleshes out the materials by developing the case studies and adding prescriber resources, such as links to Web sites that offer additional real-world practice information.

“You can’t assume teachers or certain content can be successful online just because they’ve been successful in the classroom. It’s a different skill set, says Douglas. “Mary Jo Willis … has the full package of online and face-to-face teaching skills.”

Participant feedback

The CNE course has received accolades by course participants, largely because of the convenience factor. Glynn Hamilton, a clinical nurse specialist in psychiatric mental health and family nurse practitioner, recently completed the course. Remembering the days of filling out paperwork so that a librarian could complete an after-hour computer search for research topic terms is now a bygone era.

“The 24/7 availability was wonderful to someone who has too many irons in the fire,” says Hamilton, giving it “gem” rating.

Overcoming hurdles

Douglas admits that the CNE course, like most online courses, brings its own set of challenges. “Software development is never a ‘plug and play’ proposition. It needs constant assessment, improvement, and adaptation to users’ requests.”

“There are many pieces of an online course to coordinate, such as content, marketing, e-commerce, and evaluation,” says Douglas, compounded by the need for personnel with the expertise in computer and instructional technology to accomplish this.

As Douglas views it, solutions beget more challenges: Improving the user experience by making registration and access to the learning environment more seamless is high priority.

“It’s easy for people to become isolated and fall off pace of the course,” reports Douglas. “That’s why devising automated tutors, prompters or motivators would enhance the learning experience.” Fostering learner-learner interactions through “communities of cohorts,” adds Douglas, is another entry on his “to-do” list.

As with any enterprise, Douglas has grappled with the issue of funding—to meet the needs of the targeted audience while keeping within the budget constraints of the university system. Douglas’ primary focus, however, is its measure of success gauged by intangibles, such as the value of developing an effective distance education delivery system or of building continuing education partnerships with Wisconsin agencies through sponsorship of portal programs.

“Most noteworthy,” says Douglas, “is offering quality distance education programming from the UW-Madison School of Nursing to a global audience”; that is, delivering on the university’s promise to serve as a resource to the people of the state, the country and the world.

For more information about the course, visit http://mynursingce.son.wisc.edu and click on the “Courses” tab. The listing includes Pharmacotherapy for the Primary Care Provider plus numerous other CNE courses available.

Steve Douglas (e-mail: svdougla@wisc.edu) or Mary Jo Willis (e-mail: mjwillis@wisc.edu) will be glad to answer any of your questions.

Application forms and criteria for the Advanced Practice Nurse Prescriber are found at

http://drl.wi.gov/dept/forms/form2125.pdf