In turn, the ARHP has added rheumatologists to its Executive Committee, Membership and Nominations Committee, Annual Meeting Program Subcommittee, E-Learning Subcommittee, and numerous other task forces and editorial teams. Having a rheumatologist’s input on health professional practice issues, for example, will result in enhancements to future online educational offerings. Already, specific speaker recommendations have been used for the upcoming 2010 Annual Scientific Meeting in Atlanta.
Education Is Enhanced for All
The content for the ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting is selected by both the ACR annual meeting planning subcommittee and the ARHP annual meeting program subcommittee. Sixty multidisciplinary volunteers develop more than 250 scientific sessions, 45 workshops, 100 meet-the-professor sessions, 2,000 abstracts, and countless networking forums for the more than 15,000 registrants. Although the ACR and ARHP meetings are planned by different committees, representatives from each committee serve on the other committee. Both committees consider all audience members in their planning work. As a result, meeting attendees can participate in activities from both programs and benefit from the expertise of varied physician and health professional speakers and abstract presenters. The annual meeting also provides a forum for interdisciplinary research and practice collaboration. Additionally, members and nonmembers can access the annual meeting online via SessionSelect following the meeting. Interdisciplinary education has certainly contributed to the success of the annual meeting as the premier rheumatology meeting.
Other multidisciplinary educational offerings include the online NP/PA Postgraduate Rheumatology Training Program and the Advanced Practice Skills Training Course offered in conjunction with the ACR State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposia. Created by a physician and health-professional team of editors, presenters, and reviewers, both activities were developed in direct response to the ACR Workforce Study, which displayed an urgent call for practice redesign as a way to improve patient care. Both offerings are are intense training activities designed to accelerate the training process of rheumatology nurse practitioners and physician assistants. The availability of these activities helps physicians to overcome hesitancies regarding the integration of interdisciplinary teams, based on concerns that they do not have the time required to provide on-the-job training to nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
The NP/PA program features 19 online modules that address the training needs of NPs, PAs, fellows-in-training, and other clinicians. Since its release in December 2008, the training program has enrolled 179 NPs and PAs; 50 have graduated. The Advanced Practice Skills Training Course provides participants hands-on training in performing proper examinations for musculoskeletal abnormalities, joint tenderness, and swelling, as well as instruction on how to use scoring tools such as the Health Assessment Questionnaire and Disease Activity Score for 28 Joints. Additionally, the course offers hands-on training for joint aspiration and injection. This course has been offered twice and registration has reached capacity both times.
