Quick and Easy Continuing Education:
No Strings Attached
By Tra cy Sk i n n e r o n
February 3, 2015
Although requirements vary for each health profession, in order to
maintain licensure, most require some sort of continuing education
(CE) to demonstrate competency and insure quality of care.
H
ealth professionals typically need
to take time away from work and
personal obligations to obtain
continuing education credits, which means
meeting these requirements can be fraught
with challenging barriers. This is especially
true for those practicing medicine in rural
communities where opportunities can be
very limited. Finding the time to attend
educational events is problematic and is
compounded by adding more time and
expense for traveling to such events,
particularly in a rural setting where backup
support can be inadequate.
Since the University of Arizona Medical
Center (UAMC) is a teaching hospital, the
Arizona Telemedicine Program is in an
exceptionally unique position to support
health professionals at telemedicine
member sites achieve their objectives.
The program provides a wide variety of
educational opportunities via the content
provided to students pursuing a career in
health care.
Grand Rounds
Since 1998, the Arizona Telemedicine
Program has offered educational
videoconferences via grand rounds in
medicine, surgery, advances in aging,
psychiatry, nursing, informatics, pediatrics
and obstetrics and gynecology, most
of which provide continuing medical
education (CME) and/or CE credits. Theses
weekly and monthly educational events
attract participants from physicians and
nurses to lay audiences, technicians and
CEO’s to name a few.
Clinical Care Events
In addition to the grand rounds, we also
offer our own Clinical Care Conference
Series, which is developed exclusively
for the Arizona Telemedicine Program
site participants. The conference series
enables the telemedicine program to
address imminent health concerns in the
community.
“Finding the time
to attend education
events is problematic
. . . particularly in a
rural setting where
backup support can be
inadequate.”
– Tracy Skinner
Topics are derived from an annual survey
sent to the sites. Past topics have included:
Instructing general practitioners on how to
do an orthopedic assessment
over the UA satellite and then downlink
those broadcasts to our telemedicine
sites via our own network. This allows us
to provide the latest updates in medicine
from providers such as the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, American
Heart Association, and American Diabetes
Association, to name a few.
Receiving Continuing Education
Credits
If your organization is a member of
our network and you are interested
in participating in a live interactive
videoconference to receive your
educational content, please visit our
schedule online.
If you do not have access to a
videoconference room, you can participate
live via web streaming. Visit the streaming
site at http://streaming.biocom.arizona.
edu/home/ and join the educational event
a few minutes before the start time.
For more information, please feel free
to contact me at tskinner@telemedicine.
arizona.edu or 520-626-6103.
Valley fever
Working with patients with post traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD)
Culturally appropriate care for Native
Americans
Successfully identifying and referring
patients for service dogs
The Clinical Care events also offer
the opportunity for telemedicine site
physicians to present on topics of interest
in their communities. Additionally, we have
the ability to access broadcasts sent out
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