Creating Continuing Education Courses (CEUs)

[VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN]

Has anyone ever written or designed a continuing education course (CEU)? If so, please share your experiences with the rest of the community. Would you recommend this type of work for experienced faculty? How do you market your courses? How is the pay?

Thank you in advance for sharing your experiences :)

[llg, PhD, RN]

I've got a friend who does that. She works part time as a staff development instructor at my hospital and has done some clinical instruction for some of the local schools. She also works as an instructor for a company that provides continuing education workshops on her area of clinical expertise. I believe she met those people through her professional associations, participation as a speaker in professional conferences, etc.

My suggestion would be to extablish contact with the companies and organizations that provide CEU Courses and/or materials. Talk with them about opportunities in their field and how to best get into that type of teaching. I would also do some homework and be prepared to propose some courses you could teach, how you would design them, etc. CEU classes are not the same as academic classes and they will want to see that you know the differences -- and will not approach it the same way you would approach a class for an academic program.

[showbizrn]

:)I've created and taught New York State Nurses Association approved continuing education courses which taught Rns how to perform in teaching videos, public service announcements and commercials that

were related to nursing, medical, and heatlh-related issues. IT WAS FUN!!!

The workshops ran from 2 - 8 hours

I appointed myself as the Administrator and my RN/friend as the Planner. Check with your State Nurses' Association for the required educational credentials for the two roles.

In New York, you have to request the application for approval for Continuing Education contact hours from the New York State Nurses' Association.

A small fee based on the amount of contact hours requested is required.

Know your target population and plan your marketing and advertising

strategies to reinforce a healthy attendance.

Plan a fee for your services that reimburses your costs and labour.

I had to hire a cameraman, rent a space, provide handouts/folders and refreshments.

I also advertised in a Nursing Journal which was very expensive.

My costs were high and consequently the price of my workshops were high.

I eventually developed my own crowd "regulars" but I still had to advertise to attract new clients.

The Rns enjoyed the workshops---yes, I had to submit completed evaluation forms to the New York State Nurses' Association.

FYI, I learned and had fun, too.

Hope this helps.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

Determine who will provide the certification for your classes. If it is ANCC (thru ANA) then the approval will come thru the state level in most cases. ANCC will direct you. If you use ENA or AORN or other organizations, they too will be able to direct you in what is required. For instance, ANCC does not recognize the term "CEU". It is "CNE".

I recommend either focusing on one particular area of nursing (critical care, maternal child, pain mgmt etc) to develop your repertoire, or conduct a needs survey (maybe getting list of names from BON). Check out Joint Commission website for "hot topics". Then it is a matter of advertising. Get names of all hospital educators in area and their emails/fax numbers. Offer them a free CE if they sign up 10 people. Nurses outside hospitals have to be contacted differently - flyers, blast emails (our hospital has fax numbers for all staff MD offices), newspaper ads---.

If you offer quality presentations at a reasonable price the word will spread.

Good luck in your endeavor.

[Natasha A., CNA, LVN]

Is creating a NCLEX business similar?