Whenever a crime occurs, evidence can be transferred among the perpetrator, victim, and the crime scene. Law enforcement personnel collect and preserve crime scene evidence. Healthcare professionals can simultaneously assist with a crime investigation and provide good healthcare to patients by collecting and preserving evidence from the patient’s body. It is imperative to understand that the collection and preservation of evidence from a patient should never compromise the patient’s safety, autonomy, or legal rights. This course provides an overview of interviewing, collecting, and preserving forensic evidence, toxicology, and documentation.

As a professional nurse, you are expected to be familiar with many aspects of care. You are not exempt from malpractice or negligence claims because you were following orders. You are responsible for assessing, planning, implementing, and evaluating appropriate nursing care. What you document can and does reflect the care provided and the outcomes of that care. Documentation that is factual, complete, timely, and detailed is required. In this course, you will learn about concepts and rules regarding documentation in the medical record. Legal aspects to be aware of while practicing will also be discussed. The goal of this course is to educate nursing professionals in post-acute care settings about the legal implications of documentation.

Ethics are a significant part of high-quality clinical practice. This one hour course presents ethical principles and responsibilities of healthcare professionals. The goal of this course is to provide healthcare professionals with an awareness of how ethics impact clinical practice and an approach for analyzing ethical issues in clinical practice. 

As a healthcare professional, you may find yourself in situations where issues with professional boundaries develop. Some boundary violations can be quite serious for you, your team members, your organization, and the people you provide care for. For this reason, it is important for you to be aware of these risks.

You should understand the difference between a boundary crossing and a boundary violation. You must also be able to recognize situations that may lead to a boundary crossing or violation and know how to prevent problems.

The goal of this course is to share with general staff in any setting the basics of how to maintain professional boundaries.

Although medical care can be often concrete, healthcare professionals, including nurses, are faced with ethical dilemmas that are not as clear-cut. In healthcare, sometimes situations arise where there is an “area of gray.” In those moments, thoughtful analysis using reason and ethical principles is needed. Many healthcare institutions have developed ethics committees to navigate patient care in difficult situations.

The goal of this course is to equip nurses in the acute care setting with knowledge of key terms, theories, and principles of bioethics, as well as the procedures, functions, roles, and responsibilities associated with an ethics committee in the acute care setting.

There are many reasons that it can be difficult working with certain people. There may be communication breakdowns, personality clashes, or conflicting work habits. You may not like everyone you work with, but you do have to respect everyone. By learning ways to reduce conflicts, you’ll likely become more respected, too. In this course, you’ll learn strategies to calmly address misunderstandings before they become actual conflicts. Professional relationships can improve when you know how to deal with differences, communicate clearly, and listen respectfully.