Announcements

Assessing & Managing

Suicide Risk:

Core Competencies for Mental Health Professionals

May 18, 2013 - Saturday

8:00-4:30pm

Adult Learning Center (west of TJ Maxx), Connection Center, 13150 Memorial Drive, Houston, TX, 77079

A one-day workshop for mental health professionals on assessing suicide risk,

planning treatment, and managing the

ongoing care of the at-risk client.

Sponsored by the Psychiatric Advanced Practice Nurses of Houston (PAPN), APN, the American Association of Suicidology, and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.

Psychiatric Advanced Practice Nurses of   Houston (PAPN)

Suicidal behavior is a major cause of death and disability in the United States.  Over 30,000 people die by suicide each year, the equivalent of one major airliner filled with passengers crashing every two days.  Hundreds of thousands of people are treated in hospital emergency departments each year following a suicide attempt.

A significant proportion of people who die by suicide have had recent contact with a mental health professional.  However, many providers are inadequately trained to assess, treat, and manage suicidal patients or clients.

Assessing and Managing Suicide Risk was designed to address that training gap.  It teaches essential core competencies that meet the needs of an entire spectrum of mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, nurse practitioners, licensed counselors, social workers, and employee assistance professionals. 

            Registration

The registration deadline is May 1, 2013.

Limited to 40 and no walk-ins accepted

Method of payment

The registration fee for PAPN & Menninger employees is $150 (please contact a Committee Members for a discount code).

All others $200. Price includes all materials, workbook, CEU’s, lunch, and refreshments. No refunds, but materials will be mailed to you.

**Everyone involved in the planning and delivery of this workshop has no relevant financial interest or other relationship with any of the following products discussed in this workshop or commercial services discussed in this workshop. The faculty and planners of this activity have nothing to disclose.

*This event will be wheelchair accessible.  If you need additional accommodations, please inform Wanda Hilliard at Wahillia@utmb.edu

Registration and payment link:

http://sprc.cvent.com/papn

More information

For more information, including a copy of the workshop schedule, contact Committee Members: Linda Barloon at Jlbarloon@msn.com, Sara Wood at sarawood42@gmail.com, Wanda Hilliard at Wahillia@utmb.edu, Bernadette Williams at Bwilliams321@gmail.com

          Workshop Components

Assessing and Managing Suicide Risk includes:

•●      6 ½ hours of training, comprised of an engaging

mix of lecture and exercises

•●      A 110-page participant manual, including an extensive bibliography and other valuable resources

•●      A video presentation in eight segments, highlighting the competencies taught

•●      Journaling throughout the day

•●      Ample time for discussion

Continuing Education Credits

This program has been approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW).  The Suicide Prevention Resource Center is authorized to award 6.5 NBCC clock hours and 6.5 NASW CE contact hours.

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. SPRC maintains responsibility for this program and its content.  Participants may receive 6.5 hours of APA CE credit.  Nursing will receive CEUs from AANP.

No partial credit will be given for partial attendance.

Workshop Objectives

Participants will gain knowledge in the following core competencies:

•●      Managing one’s own reactions to suicide

•●      Reconciling the difference and potential conflict between a clinician’s goal to prevent suicide and a client’s goal to eliminate psychological pain through suicide

•●      Maintaining a collaborative, non-adversarial stance

•●      Eliciting suicide ideation, behavior, and plans

•●      Making a clinical judgment of the risk that a client will attempt or complete suicide

•●      Collaboratively developing an emergency plan

•●      Developing a written treatment and services plan that addresses a client’s immediate, acute, and continuing suicide ideation and risk for suicide

•●      Developing policies and procedures for following clients closely

Presenter: Pam Greene, PhD, RN

Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services  & Chief Nursing Officer

The Menninger Clinic

Dr. Greene is a certified trainer for the Suicide Prevention Resource Center and has been a speaker on suicide prevention with psychiatric clients for over ten years. Her doctoral research addressed nurses who work with suicidal  adolescents.

February 24, 2013

The following position openings and community opportunities have been received by HANP.  They are posted for your information, but not endorsed by our organization.

1.      The clinic I am doing my current FNP clinical in happens to be looking for an NP to fill in for the Physician March 13, 14, and 15. They are planning on expanding and this could lead into a full-time position by early summer. Can you post this for any currently licensed NP.

Contact:

HIGH TECH FAMILY

MOHAMMAD BILLAL

281-364-1700 - office

281-364-1710 - fax

832-876-7456 - cell

www.hightechbillal.com

www.htechfamily.com

The office staff works well together and they use e-Clinical and easy computer system to document in.

2.       Ben Stafford is looking for master’s level nurses who are interested in picking up extra hours.  “I always need nurses to supervise preceptor/student pairs as described below and I need master’s level nurses who are used to teaching in an online format via Blackboard.”

3.       Alief Kerr High School (8150 Howell Sugar Land Rd. | Houston, TX 77083) is having a Career Day on Friday, April 5 from 8 - 10:30 am. We have been trying to get a Nurse Practioner for years, and we were hoping this would be our lucky year! Our format is very relaxed – our classes (senior, junior, etc.) come to the cafeteria every 30 minutes for informal Q&A with our guests. Do you know of any Nurse Practioners who might be able to help us with this event? We really appreciate any help you could give us! Best regards! diane.barrett@aliefisd.net

Sign-up today at http://www.homelesshouston.org/.

Star of Hope is participating in the annual Homeless Point-In-Time Enumeration and needs your help. Mandated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the enumeration is done each year to count the homeless in Houston and surrounding areas.

Star of Hope works with Coalition for the Homeless to set-up “surface teams” of volunteers who will actually go out to count those on the street. (Another method is used to count the homeless who are in shelters and other facilities.)

We need 500 or more volunteers, age 18 or older, to complete this effort. This is how it will work:

• Tuesday, January 15, 2013, 5:30 pm – 7 pm – Training Sessions for volunteers at various sites throughout Houston

• Tuesday, January 22, 2013, 5:30 pm – 11:30 pm – Informal/Practice Count – Each team is assigned to a staging area (about 10 across Houston) where they will receive a map of the assigned area to cover, scour the assigned area for unsheltered homeless persons, and return with data.

• Tuesday, January 29, 2013, 5:30 pm – 11:30 pm – FORMAL/OFFICIAL Count – Same procedure as above with SAME teams as above.

CNAP INTERIM REPORT of May 17, 2012

EXCITING NEWS -- 2013 LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVE AND IMPORTANT ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY UNVEILED JUST AHEAD OF KEY LEGISLATIVE HEARING

[Note: Underlined phrases link to additional information.  If you have difficulty, visit the CNAP Home page directly, www.cnaptexas.org.]

The Coalition for Nurses in Advanced Practice, in conjunction with other nursing organizations and the Texas Team, announced at a press conference on May 14, 2012, a legislative initiative to take forward to the 83^rd Legislature when the session begins in January 2013.  Simultaneously, the Texas Team unveiled an economic study done by a well-acclaimed economist, Ray Perryman, which examines the impact of greater utilizing advanced practice nurses as recommended by the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report,

The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.

The Perryman Report estimates that the medical cost savings resulting from the efficiencies created by greater utilization of APRNs by removing some of the existing legal barriers would yield a broader economic impact that includes over $8 Billion in gross product and over 97,000 new jobs, annually; an estimate that he assures is conservative. The overall economic stimulus is over $16 Billion, plus there is a gain to state and local sales tax revenue of over $480 Million and $230 Million, respectively.  This is great information to share with your legislators.  Please take time to look at the report.  Note the appendices where the data is broken down by counties.  It really drives the point home, when you can tell your Senator and Representative how changing the law can improve the economy and job creation in his/her area and can back it up with the facts.

CNAP’s proposed 2013 Legislative Initiative would eliminate delegation and the current overly complex site-based restrictions.  Under this collaborative model, an APRN would be credentialed by the Board of Nursing (same as current law) and must secure and maintain a collaborative prescriptive authority agreement with a physician, or physician group, for the purpose of referrals and consultation.  Currently, Texas is among the most restrictive of states (15) which require physician delegation and certain specific acts of supervision.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, the laws of 18 states plus the District of Columbia provide for independent practice, which allows APRNs to practice to the full extent of their education and certification (as suggested by the IOM report).  Our 2013 Legislative Initiative would move Texas into the middle category with 17 other states that currently provide for collaborative prescriptive authority agreements.  A map demonstrating the comparison of states is available on the CNAP Web site.

CNAP has worked diligently with its member organizations and related stakeholder groups for many months to develop a legislative initiative that will have consensus among all nursing groups and other important allies.  With little to no progress made in the last two legislative sessions when only independent prescriptive authority was sought, it is felt by nursing advocacy groups and our allies that this collaborative agreement approach is more advisable at this time.

Press coverage following the Monday press conference was extensive and provided a very nice backdrop for the legislative hearing the next morning.  (To review the press coverage, click here.)  The day after the hearing, HHSC Commissioner Tom Suehs, Representative Garnet Coleman (D-HD 147, Houston) and our own lobbyist Kathy Hutto were interviewed by KUHF-FM, Houston’s Public Radio Station.  To listen to that interview, click here.

When the House Public Health Committee met May 15, 2012, in Houston at the UT School of Public Health, it considered interim charges related to: (1) state changes in Medicaid funding and service delivery; and, (2) a lengthy multi-faceted charge that includes workforce, access to care issues and the phrase we all hate, “physician extenders”.  It reads as follows.

                Examine the adequacy of the primary care workforce in Texas and assess the impact of an aging population, the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and state and federal funding reductions to graduate medical education and physician loan repayment programs. Study the potential impact of medical school innovations, new practice models, alternative reimbursement strategies, expanded roles for physician extenders, and greater utilization of telemedicine. Make recommendations to increase patient access to primary care and address geographic disparities.

The 2013 Legislative Initiative and the Perryman Report were presented to the committee during testimony by Commander James Dickens, a Dallas FNP with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health representing the Texas Team.  Marty Strong, a PNP in private practice in Richardson testified on behalf of CNAP and TNP.  As she described her clinic and the Medicaid/CHIP population she serves as well as the recent problems she has encountered upon the unexpected death of her delegating physician, Marty made a strong case for why the laws in Texas need to be changed.  Both faced some tough questions, but represented their profession well.  Concerns continue to be expressed about physician liability, the appropriateness of allowing APRNs and PAs to prescribe Schedule II drugs, and whether the BON is the appropriate place for APRNs to be regulated if they are functioning without delegation. 

Prior to this panel, though, the committee heard presentations from officials with certain state agencies (HHSC, TMB, BON, Higher Education Coordinating Board, and the Statewide Health Coordinating Council), followed by officials of the state’s medical schools.  There was also a panel representing the interests of physicians (TMA, TAFP, White Glove Health, and a first year physician in residency).

For over eight hours, the committee listened earnestly and asked many questions of each of the panels.  Then they heard public testimony.  Cyndee Malowitz, ANP, GNP and FNP, described the care she provides at Bay Area Quick Care in Corpus Christi and the challenges she finds practicing in Texas after practicing in New Mexico where she had independent prescriptive authority.  She too did a great job!

At the end of the hearing, it was clear there is a great deal of interest in greater funding for medical schools and graduate medical education to improve the shortage of primary care physicians.  However, the interest in better utilizing APRNs to address provider shortages appears to have made progress, but we still have a lot of work to do.  With the Perryman Report, we are well positioned to do that work, but need your help to spread the message.

WHAT ARE NEXT STEPS?

CNAP and all APRNs must remain diligent in efforts to improve legislative understanding and willingness to forge change.  The imposing crisis in access and affordability of safe patient care may create just the tipping point needed to advance such change.  Here is what you can do to make a difference:

1. Contribute to CNAP now so we can continue our advocacy and educational efforts. (Click here)  Remember: Only about a third of CNAP’s revenue comes from our member organizations, and a much smaller portion comes from sale of educational products, but over half comes from individuals.  WE rely on YOU to continue our efforts on your behalf.

2. Contribute to the Texas RN/APN PAC. (Click here)

3. During the next eight months before the beginning of the legislative session, contact your state representative and senator to visit with them in your home district about the health care you give and the importance of changing the law to allow APRNs to better practice to the full extent of their education. (Click here to find your state senator, and click here to find your state representative.)

4.  Remember to vote.  Early voting has started and the Primary is on May 29^th, the day after the Memorial Day holiday.  Many of our friends and supporters are in tough races and need our support.  If we want them to be there for us next session, we must be there for them now!