You have probably heard about an “IQ” score that measures intelligence, but have you ever heard of “emotional intelligence” or EQ? Emotional intelligence is your ability to understand, express, and manage your emotions, as well as your insight into what the people around you are feeling. EQ can add to your quality of life and contribute to career success. In this course, you’ll learn about developing emotional awareness, which is the foundation of emotional intelligence.

Listening skills are an often-undeveloped component of effective communication. Leaders and managers with strong listening skills build more productive and engaged teams with increased effectiveness. In this course, you will learn how managers and leaders can listen actively to build stronger teams and increase their impact. You will also learn the importance of establishing common ground and practicing empathy as you apply the techniques for becoming a better listener.

The goal of this course is to provide managers and leaders with the awareness and skills to be effective communicators.

As a healthcare professional, you may find yourself in situations where issues with professional boundaries develop. Some boundary violations can be quite serious for you, your team members, your organization, and the people you provide care for. For this reason, it is important for you to be aware of these risks.

You should understand the difference between a boundary crossing and a boundary violation. You must also be able to recognize situations that may lead to a boundary crossing or violation and know how to prevent problems.

The goal of this course is to share with general staff in any setting the basics of how to maintain professional boundaries.

Boundaries are important in guiding acceptable and unacceptable interactions. People working in service or care professions are often in situations where the lines between a professional and social relationship become blurred. Setting and keeping professional boundaries are key to protecting your clients, yourself, and the service or care process. The goal of this course is to provide paraprofessionals in health and human services settings with information about professional boundaries, boundary crossings and violations, and situations when crossing a boundary may be acceptable.

In this course, you will learn about Motivational Interviewing, an intervention to help people discover their own desire and ability to make difficult changes. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a way of communicating that draws out people’s own thoughts and beliefs in order to help them address their ambivalence about making a change.

The course uses a blend of instructive information and interactive exercises to help you understand and apply its core concepts. The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human service settings with the skills to define and demonstrate the core concepts of Motivational Interviewing.

Within healthcare, a patient with limited English proficiency (LEP) is an individual whose primary means of communication is not English and who has a limited command of the language in reading, writing, speaking, or understanding (Office for Civil Rights, 2016). These patients need the careful attention of healthcare personnel to ensure the safety and quality of care. Healthcare professionals should understand regulations and standards related to patients with LEP, such as the use of an interpreter for communication.

The goal of this educational program is to improve the ability of the healthcare team to provide quality care and better outcomes for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP).

Chronic pain is a common condition for which healthcare providers often prescribe controlled substances, such as opioids. Prescription opioids can alleviate pain in certain patients, but the risk of misuse, abuse, and overdose means providers need to evaluate the risks and benefits for each patient. This course will educate healthcare providers on the role of prescription opioids along with other therapies for chronic pain, using recommendations from current national guidelines.

The goal of this course is to educate healthcare providers on methods for the safe and responsible use of controlled substances for the management of chronic pain.

Health inequities in pain management are prevalent across different healthcare settings. The cultural, ethnic, and social differences influence patients’ and providers’ perceptions and responses to pain. Several studies report higher incidences of pain, disability, and suffering in women and people of color compared to non-Hispanic White people. This course covers influential sociocultural factors grouped into the patient, the provider, and systemic factors. This course helps healthcare professionals become familiar with cultural differences associated with pain perceptions and management. Pain variables such as culture, religion or ethnicity are not part of standardized pain scales. Healthcare workers need to provide culturally competent care to their patients by asking about specific practices, beliefs, and values regarding pain that impacts the patient’s quality of life.

The goal of this course is to provide nurses, physicians, and social workers with an overview of cultural sensitivity in the management of pain.

The emphasis on pain management to improve quality of life and function has contributed to a significant increase in opioid prescriptions. As such, there has been a concurrent increase in risk of misuse and abuse. While opioids are highly effective for pain relief, closer attention to the risk versus benefit analysis has led to guidelines that prefer nonpharmacologic and nonopioid pharmacologic therapy over opioids, especially for chronic pain. Clinicians must carefully monitor the patient and be alert for signs that risks outweigh benefits of opioids. This course will address issues related to opioid prescribing, chronic pain, and opioid use disorder.

End-of-life issues are difficult to face. The decisions to be made are challenging for everyone involved including the dying person, their loved ones, and the healthcare team. Individuals will have their own unique needs and concerns and will cope in their own way. But this can also be an opportunity for personal growth. These events will often provide people with the opportunity to self-reflect and gain insight into what is most valuable to them.

Healthcare professionals witness the impact on patients’ quality of life and also see how hard it is for people to make changes in their health. Motivational interviewing is a patient-centered way to have a conversation that supports those struggling to make behavioral changes. The provider helps the patient explore personal motivators and identify their own goals. The approach is based on what matters to the patient. When each member of an interprofessional team practices from this point of view, the results can be positive for the patient and for the practitioners.

Americans are using opioids at an alarming rate, whether through prescriptions or illegal means. Parallel to this problem is the use of opioids during pregnancy.

The goal for this course is to present RNs, PAs, physicians, and entry-level drug and alcohol counselors in inpatient or outpatient settings with best practices for identifying and managing pregnant women who are using opioids.

The current opioid use epidemic has had devastating consequences for those impacted by it. Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) is an effective, yet underused, approach to the treatment of opioid use disorder. By taking this course, you will have information that you can share with your clients and their family members about what MOUD is, its risks and benefits, and the types of medications used in MOUD. The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human services settings with an overview of what MOUD is, how it can help individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD), and the medications used by providers that treat OUD.

This course explains the concept of a professional therapeutic boundary and how it differs from a personal relationship. You will learn about the ethical role of the clinical practitioner in establishing appropriate roles and boundaries, the difference between boundary crossings and boundary violations, how to appropriately use social media and other technology, and how to recognize situations with high potential for harmful boundary violations. As you master these skills, you will become more effective in maintaining an appropriate relationship between you and your clients.

The patient interview is the most important part of your exam. Gaining the patient’s perspective and learning more about issues important to them can guide you in developing patient-specific care plans. This course will discuss how to conduct patient-centered interviews. You will learn interviewing methods to effectively elicit the important details about a patient's reason for presenting to the clinic. Information will also be presented on how to approach challenging situations that arise during patient encounters.

Pain management in the emergency department relies heavily on the use of opioid analgesics, which generates risk for patients to develop long term opioid use or an opioid use disorder.  Multimodal analgesia can improve the patient experience and reduce the risks of opioid use if emergency providers approach pain with a more critical mindset.This activity is designed to help emergency providers improve management of pain while decreasing patient exposure to opioids.  It is also designed to help providers navigate how to manage patients with opioid use disorder.

The increased emphasis on pain management to improve functionality and quality of life has contributed to significantly more opioid prescriptions. Their availability led to widespread misuse across the nation. This course will address regulation and misuse of opioids and evidence-based management of chronic pain.

Safely managing pain for the people in your care requires you to be knowledgeable about pain management recommendations. It is important to understand the risk factors for misuse and substance use disorder (SUD) as well as the signs that someone has a SUD and how to treat it. Unfortunately, SUD is one of the drivers of drug diversion. Therefore, it is also critical that you understand drug diversion tactics and behaviors so you can help prevent it. The goal of this course is to educate healthcare providers in all settings on pain management and preventing substance use disorder and diversion.