Eclipsys Corporation, has announced the availability of continuing education units (CEUs) or contact hours for nurses taking part in end-user training courses for Sunrise Clinical Manager, Eclipsys' clinical information system. Eclipsys is currently the only healthcare information technology vendor to provide CEUs as part of its standard implementation methodology.

This offering coincides with a recent industry report recognizing the strength of Eclipsys' training programs. The June 2002 KLAS Mid-Year Report Card awarded Eclipsys top honors for quality of training for Sunrise Clinical Manager and the Eclipsys 7000 Series heritage system in the categories of Acute Care Orders & Charting and Acute Care Clinical Data Repository (CDR) & Electronic Medical Record (EMR).

Providing opportunities for continuing education plays a part in a healthcare organization's ability to retain a talented workforce even as it faces continued shortages of new recruits. Registered nurses (RNs) comprise the largest segment of the healthcare workforce, with over 1.8 million RNs employed and more than 2.2 million educated and licensed to practice in the United States.

Generally, each state sets its own requirements regarding CEUs for maintaining licensure or certification. The contact hours provided by the Clinical Manager training courses have been approved by the Georgia Nursing Association (GNA) and can be granted to nursing personnel from any state that is a member of the American Nursing Association. Healthcare organizations providing end-user training may choose to sponsor the nominal test fee or nurses may elect to pay for the test themselves.

Because Eclipsys offers the contact hours directly, hospital training coordinators are not required to apply for credits or go through the process of obtaining the certificates and managing the results. Additionally, since healthcare organizations conduct the training on their own campuses, they incur no travel costs. Moreover, the time spent taking end-user training courses is also applied toward contact hours, which translates into cost savings of the time off usually given to nursing staff to take other courses to satisfy continuing education requirements.

Click here for more information.