Kathy Chappell
Dr. Kathy Chappell knows the important role nurses play in improving the health and wellbeing of the communities in which they work. For the past 10 years, through her role as senior vice president of accreditation, certification, measurement, and the institute for credentialing research and quality management at the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), she has created opportunities for nurses already in the field to learn and develop the skills necessary to practice collaboratively with healthcare teams and the patients they work with. Though it’s been several years since Chappell walked the halls of a hospital or clinic, she is still impacting the care nurses provide each day.
As the opioid crisis rages across the United States, Chappell’s work now focuses on preparing nurses to provide better care for patients with opioid use disorder and chronic pain by improving the education they receive.
What is the role of the ANCC in educating and training clinicians?
Chappell: ANCC sets standards for organizations to provide continuing nursing education (CNE) for registered nurses and advanced practice nurses. ANCC also collaborates with the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education to set standards for organizations providing interprofessional continuing education (IPCE). Many different types of organizations are accredited to provide CNE or IPCE credit including private education companies, hospitals and health care systems, governmental agencies, state organizations, and professional associations.
We also help ensure that clinicians-turned-educators are prepared to effectively teach the students they work with. The field is changing all the time and we have excellent clinicians becoming educators. Their clinical experience is important, but teaching isn’t what they were trained to do. We work to ensure people are using evidence-based teaching strategies and improving their educational practice.
How has your current work with the American Nurses Credentialing Center evolved as a result of the opioid epidemic?
Chappell: Our educational achievement standards were high before the epidemic, and they haven’t changed. We don’t change our standards of education based on ongoing public health crises, and our standards apply independent of content area or particular disease type.
However, we also know that people don’t change their practice by participating in a one-hour webinar. We know that we need education to meet the needs of individual practitioners and the patients they serve. For example, a pain management nurse has different needs and treats different patients than a pediatric nurse practitioner. We have to both tailor education to the particular learner and continue to develop education and training to expand their knowledge of treatment and protocols for diseases they are less familiar with or patient populations with whom they interact less frequently.
Health care and nursing is ever-changing and, over the last 10 years, we have seen the benefits of collaborative practice. We see positive outcomes and success from utilizing group work to address common problems. That’s true for the opioid epidemic as well. ANCC has recognized that team-based care leads to better outcomes for patients so I hope that education standards for all clinicians start or continue to promote this practice.
How did you come to be involved with the National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Countering the U.S. Opioid Epidemic (the Action Collaborative)?
Chappell: I was invited to speak at an event to share how the continuing education community was working together to address the opioid crisis. Arming clinicians in the field with the knowledge they need to diagnose and treat patients with opioid use disorder and care for those who experience chronic pain is necessary to turning the tide of this epidemic. The NAM recognized this and the important role continuing education could have, and invited myself, Steve Singer, the Vice President of Education and Outreach of the Accreditation Council of Continuing Medical Education, and Eric Holmboe, chief research, milestone development, and evaluation officer for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, to be co-leads of the Health Professional Education and Training working group.
Why is it important for nurses to be engaged in the opioid crisis and be represented on the Opioid Action Collaborative?
Chappell: There are 4 million nurses in the United States, and some of these nurses prescribe opioids. All nurses care for patients who are in pain. Nurses are involved at every level of care and in every specialty and have a huge opportunity to help address the opioid crisis. They generally spend more time with patients than any other clinician and have a significant role to play in ensuring patients get the care and attention they need. For 18 years, nurses have been named the most trusted profession in the U.S. by Gallup. Trust is often missing between a person with an opioid use disorder and the clinicians they come in contact with. But trust can be the difference between recovery and active addiction, so we think nurses have a critical role to play here.
Why is education an avenue you think the NAM Action Collaborative can take to make change?
Chappell: In some ways, there are fewer barriers to make changes in education. If the NAM Action Collaborative is able to identify and share evidence-based practices for teaching, there’s a lower barrier to incorporating those effective educational strategies than to changing federal or state policies, for example. Additionally, there are few barriers to individual clinicians implementing effective strategies into their own clinical practice. While there are aspects of the educational field that take longer to change, like updating curriculum, there’s still tremendous benefit to finding gaps and sharing them with the appropriate accrediting bodies for consideration as they are updating what nurses, dentists, physicians, pharmacists, and other clinicians need to learn to provide the best care possible to patients.
Education can be an infrastructure to drive change. We know providers need education to stay up-to-date and deliver care, so ensuring that they have accurate data and cutting-edge approaches is one way to start making these in-roads.
What impact do you hope the NAM Action Collaborative will have?
Chappell: I hope the recommendations of the NAM Action Collaborative will lead to new education standards that are more strategic in nature, are evaluated for effectiveness, and emphasize the benefits of team-based care in clinical settings. We know patients and families are an important part of the healthcare team. Health behaviors have to be modified by patients and clinical visits, new medications, and accessing other healthcare services will impact their lives as well as their families. I hope the emphasis on a team approach leads to clinicians keeping patients and their families engaged as members of the treatment planning team. Through these efforts, I hope we will right-size and people who need pain management are effectively managed and that we reduce the unintended consequences of the opioid crisis.
Learn more about the NAM’s Action Collaborative on Countering the U.S. Action Collaborative and sign up for our mailing list.
