Select AORN Congress Sessions Featured in New Online Format

Starting May 2-3 with a live, interactive event, the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) will provide online 11 of the most popular education sessions from its Congress conference for operating room nurses who didnt have the time, resources or other support they needed to attend the week-long face to face event in March. Technology makes it possible, demand for accessible education made it necessary for AORN to expand its annual conference to offer an online format.

"We dont want to limit quality education to only those nurses who can attend Congress in person," says Susan Bakewell, MS, RN-BC, AORNs director of education. "It is important that healthcare providers are able to access education resources when and how they need it."

At $149, eCongress is affordable for individuals and for the often tight education budgets of hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers that will be able to share the content organization-wide without continuing education credits but at no additional cost.
Face to face education events for healthcare professionals are effective resources when theyre staged close to home, when the professional has the time and registration fees, or when their manager has an education budget and is staffed to cover absences. Given these obstacles, the largest and arguably the best resource for perioperative nurse continuing education, AORN Congress might be a bit of a stretch for the perioperative nurse who wants to develop their professional skills or maintain certification. While more than 5,000 nurses do find their way to AORNs week-long education conference, there are another estimated 155,000 perioperative nurses working in the US who dont. According to AORN, eCongress is meant for them.

As with the face to face event, the online eCongress sessions cover patient and worker safety in the operating room including the prevention of healthcare acquired infections, how to manage a hybrid OR, and sterile processing standards. Each of the eleven eCongress sessions has been edited from the original full-length presentation in order to present the key elements necessary to obtain a minimum of 12 continuing education credits.

eCongress sessions were recorded at the March face to face event and so are presented by nationally acclaimed speakers including Michael Bleich, PhD, RN, FAAN who spoke at Congress on the Institute of Medicines Future of Nursing report. His eCongress session is titled, Every Nurse's Commitment: What the IOM Future of Nursing Report Needs from You. On May 2 and 3, Dr. Bleich and the other session speakers will be online to answer questions online from the registrants who can also use the live format to network with their peers. The May 2-3 interactive event will remain available online along with the recorded sessions for a full year.

The complete schedule, with topics, session descriptions, and speaker information can be seen at http://www.aorn.org/eCongress/ The cost to attend all sessions, including a full year of access, is $149.