This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Nephrology nurses' association releases revamped CKD modules for medical professionals
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
ORLANDO — Sally would be proud.
A group of dedicated nephrology nurses and hundreds of hours of writing and editing has resulted in a revised set of education modules for medical staff outside of nephrology who need to understand the basic principles of kidney disease.
Developing the original modules was the brainstorm of the late Sally Burrows-Hudson, a former American Nephrology Nurses’ Association president who talked years ago about finding ways to help the medical community outside of nephrology understand how to detect early signs of kidney disease and target interventions for treating its effects. https://nephrologycom.wpengine.com/articles/110359-nephrology-loses-a-giant
“These new modulates are dedicated to the memory of Sally, a fierce proponent of continued education for all nurses,” said close friend and nephrology nurse Lesley C. Dinwiddie, MSN RN, FNP, CNN, at the ANNA 46th national symposium.
Those who do not work in dialysis “don’t know what these patients are doing on a day-to-day basis—dealing with diet and fluid restrictions, what medications they take, the psychosocial issues, and other things,” said Dinwiddie, who helped to direct a $10,000 grant from the Institute for Clinical Excellence, Education, and Research to ANNA to develop the updated modules.
Dozens of nurses donated their time to build the project, said Dinwiddie, which is called “Chronic Kidney Disease: What Every Nurse Caring for the CKD Patient Should Know.”
The first modules, released in 2006, were directed at nursing homes to help improve caregiver education. In August 2013, the quest came to revise the modules with new information for a completion date of December. That did not materialize, but the 35-member nursing group kept working on it until its release on April 20 of this year.
Dinwiddie said the revisions to the modules were important because of the new research and education material that has been released in the last decade, including the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative and the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes guidelines.
The modules also have practical application for nurses that are new to the field of nephrology, said Dinwiddie. There are more than 30,000 nurses in nephrology today.
While the content is free to all nurses, ANNA will be offering up to 7.8 CNEs for the whole series.
According to the ANNA website, the modules address “the nursing care needs of the chronic kidney disease (CKD) patient in settings outside of nephrology or dialysis. Given the magnitude of the population afflicted with CKD and the variety of settings in which these patients are found, the contents of each module will be of benefit to nurses caring for nephrology patients in many settings.”
The seven modules available include:
- Introduction to Chronic Kidney Disease: An Overview of Causes, Stages, and Treatment
- Chronic Kidney Disease - Stages 1 through 3
- Chronic Kidney Disease - Stages 4 and 5: Overview of Therapy Options
- Kidney Replacement Therapy - Transplantation
- Kidney Replacement Therapy - Self-Care Dialysis
- Kidney Replacement Therapy - Assisted Dialysis
- Chronic Kidney Disease in the Pediatric Population
The modules can be found at https://annanurse.org/resources/cne-opportunities/education-modules.
Access to the modules is free, and free CNEs are available for the first module, “Introduction to chronic kidney disease: An overview of causes, stages, and treatment.” -by Mark Neumann