APNA Joins White House Effort to Address Opioid Misuse and Overdose Epidemic in Communities Across the Nation
The American Psychiatric Nurses Association has joined a White House effort to address the ongoing epidemic of prescription drug abuse and heroin use across the nation. With organizations from both the public and private sectors participating, the effort seeks to train health care providers, improve access to treatment, and raise awareness of the risks of prescription drug misuse. Full Story

Kosuke Niitsu Named Recipient of 2015 APNF Grant
Kosuke Niitsu, MSN, APRN-NP, PMHNP-BC/PhD Student, is a 4th year PhD student at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. His research interests center on resilience after traumatic events. He is conducting dissertation research titled "Genetic Influence on Resilience to Potentially Traumatic Events". It will focus on genetic indicators of resilience, as existing trauma studies focus on what factors may predict the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. His research will investigate different responses to potentially traumatic events and address both psychosocial variables and selected genotypes that may influence resilience. Click here for more information.

APNA 29th Annual Conference Online Poster Gallery
This online resource allows you to check out posters that will be presented at the Annual Conference - if you aren't able to be there in person or if you want to revisit the poster presentations at any time, you can! Search the gallery by keyword, browse by topic, or search by name for a colleague's poster. Click here to access the gallery.

The future success of Alzheimer's prevention research could depend on the ability of researchers from different clinical trials to build collaborative relationships that facilitate the sharing of information, resources and expertise that may speed the discovery of new preventive treatments, according to leading Alzheimer's researchers who published a Perspectives article, "CAP—advancing the evaluation of preclinical Alzheimer disease treatments," online today in Nature Reviews Neurology. Full Story

A new treatment program for young patients in their first episode of psychosis called NAVIGATE has reported significant advantages in symptom ratings, participation in school or work and quality of life. The effects are especially pronounced for patients whose illness had lasted less than 74 weeks prior to first treatment. Full Story

Over the last few years, more youth are becoming depressed yet 64% of youth with depression do not receive any treatment, according to Mental Health America's annual State of Mental Health in America report. Only 22% of youth with severe depression receive any kind of consistent outpatient treatment. Full Story

The Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) Bureau of Health Workforce (BHW) has released the FY 2016 Funding Opportunity Announcement for the Nurse Education, Practice, and Quality-Interprofessional Collaborative Practice: Behavioral Health Integration. The purpose of the program is to integrate interprofessional and collaborative models of behavioral health services into nurse-led primary care teams in order to increase access to care, enhance care coordination, and improve patient outcomes in rural and underserved community-based settings. Click here for more information.

During the month of October, the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) will hold its fifth annual Corps Community Month to increase awareness about primary care careers and the NHSC’s role in bringing primary health care services to communities that need them the most. Loan repayment opportunities are offered to primary care providers who commit to serving for at least two years at an NHSC-approved site located in a Health Professional Shortage Area. Mental and behavioral health professionals, including psychiatric nurses, are eligible to apply. The next application cycle is tentatively scheduled to open in January 2016. To learn more click here or sign up to be notified.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will be awarding up to $649 million in funding over several years for programs providing crucial prevention and treatment services addressing the behavioral health needs of children, adolescents, young adults, and their families. These programs address a wide range of behavioral health issues affecting young people and families including, suicide prevention, substance abuse prevention, HIV-AIDS prevention, and serious emotional disturbance. Full Story

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is providing up to $149.7 million in funding over several years to programs promoting integrated treatment and recovery services for mental and/or substance use disorders. SAMHSA funding will support evidence-based programs that build upon a variety of community behavioral support systems to better address a wide range of issues vital to treatment and recovery. Full Story

Despite known risks of serious side effects, especially in older adults, the fraction of seniors treated with antipsychotic medications increases with age, according to a new NIH funded study. Such medications may be appropriate for treating certain mental disorders, yet more than three-quarters of seniors receiving an antipsychotic prescription in 2010 had no documented clinical psychiatric diagnosis during the year. Further, among those who did have a diagnosed mental disorder and/or dementia, nearly half of the oldest patients had dementia, regardless of FDA warnings that antipsychotics increase mortality in people with dementia. Full Story

The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) released its second updated and expanded Beers Criteria - lists of potentially inappropriate medications for older adults who are not receiving hospice or palliative care, and one of the most frequently cited reference tools in the field of geriatrics. With increasing evidence that antipsychotics cause considerable harm without improving care outcomes for people with delirium and dementia, for example, the 2015 AGS Beers Criteria now endorse “avoiding antipsychotics for behavioral problems” altogether unless behavior modification has failed or the older adult poses a physical threat to self or others. Full Story

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Aristada (aripiprazole lauroxil) extended release injection to treat adults with schizophrenia. Aristada is administered by a health care professional every four to six weeks using an injection in the arm or buttocks. Full Story

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), in conjunction with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), awarded a total of $22.9 million to support states throughout the nation in their efforts to improve behavioral health of their citizens by providing community-based mental and substance use disorder treatment. Full Story

With a 20% increase in new nursing positions and a third of all current RNs expected to retire by 2020, the United States will need another 1.1 million registered nurses and advanced practice registered nurses, such as nurse practitioners, in the next five years, reported Healthline. Full Story

Click here for the October State Legislative Activity Report, made available as a part of APNA's new legislative tracking system!

Mental Health America (MHA) and Netsmart announced their support for legislation in Congress that would update decades-old 42 CFR Part 2 regulations to streamline the patient consent process for sharing addiction treatment information with their healthcare providers. Current complex patient consent requirements make it difficult or impossible for patients and providers in these care settings to share patient data related to substance use disorders (SUD) and co-occurring physical and behavioral health conditions. Full Story

The U.S. Senate passed S.599, the Improving Access to Emergency Psychiatric Care Act of 2015. The measure was introduced by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Patrick Toomey (R-PA), and Susan Collins (R-ME) to keep alive the Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Demonstration Project, which ends this year without Congressional action. The budget-neutral bill would allow Medicaid beneficiaries in 10 demonstration states and the District of Columbia to continue to serve adults (ages 21-64) who would otherwise be prohibited from accessing short-term acute care in psychiatric hospitals because of the "Institutions for Mental Disease" (IMD) exclusion. The bill would also give the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary discretion to expand the demonstration nationwide. Full Story

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is partnering with federal and state agencies, nursing homes, other providers, advocacy groups, and caregivers to improve comprehensive dementia care.  CMS and its partners are committed to finding new ways to implement practices that enhance the quality of life for people with dementia, protect them from substandard care and promote goal-directed, person-centered care for every nursing home resident. Full Story

The American Nurses Association (ANA) and the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) are partnering to convene the time-limited Palliative and Hospice Nursing Professional Issues Panel to promote the integration of palliative and hospice care into U.S. healthcare delivery systems. Potential products of this intense professional work effort might include: a relevant joint ANA-HPNA position statement, educational resources or toolkit, or a collection of references identifying nursing’s contributions in palliative and hospice care in today’s US healthcare environment and accompanying framework of necessary changes in nursing practice and education to promote enhanced access and use of palliative and hospice services. Panel member applications will be accepted until midnight on Oct. 30, 2015. Click here for more information.

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is Accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.