New Education to Help Nurses Prevent Suicide in Acute Care Settings
With suicide as the tenth leading cause of death in the United States and a major public health problem, the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) has released a new training to equip nurses working in acute care settings to keep patients at risk for suicide safe. Though deaths by suicide in hospital settings are preventable, a recent survey of 15,000 health and behavioral health care staff indicated that, among those who interact with patients, only half had received training in suicide screening or risk assessment, and only one-third felt strongly that they had the knowledge, skill, confidence, and comfort in providing care for individuals at risk for suicide. This training works to leverage the power of nurses -- members of one of the most trusted professions in America-- in order to save lives. Click here to read more.

APNA 32nd Annual Conference
Thanks to the more than 1,700 attendees who helped make this year's annual conference a success. Conference attendees, please remember to complete your online evaluations and generate your CE Certificate by December 7. APNA members can view poster presentations from the 32nd Annual Conference by visiting the Online Poster Gallery. You can browse by topic, keyword, or presenter name! Click here to access the gallery.

2018 APNA Annual Activity Report
The Treasurer, Secretary, and President have each provided reports which speak to key APNA activities from the past year. Supplemental reports in the Appendix offer a comprehensive look at council accomplishments, continuing education programs, financial statements, and more. Click here to access the report.

Plan Ahead: Psychopharmacology for 2019
In 2019, master your psychopharmacologic nursing practice and join a community of providers like you at the APNA Clinical Psychopharmacology Institute. Choose from two options...

APNA Clinical Psychopharmacology Institute West
March 16-17 / San Diego, CA - 10 pharmacology contact hours

APNA 17th Annual Clinical Psychopharmacology Institute
June 6-9 / Louisville, KY - 20+ pharmacology contact hours

Cohen Veterans Network (CVN) and National Council for Behavioral Health issued the inaugural America’s Mental Health 2018, a comprehensive study of access to mental health care. The study revealed that mental health services in the U.S. are insufficient despite more than half of Americans (56%) seeking help. While limited options and long waits were seen as the norm, some bright spots were apparent with 76% of Americans now seeing mental health as important as physical health. Full Story

Mental health disorders are on the rise in every country in the world and could cost the global economy up to $16 trillion between 2010 and 2030 if a collective failure to respond is not addressed, according to a report in The Lancet. While some of the costs will be the direct costs of health care and medicines or other therapies, most are indirect—in the form of loss of productivity and spending on social welfare, education, and law and order, the report's co-lead author Vikram Patel said. Full Story

Mental Health America (MHA) has released Beyond Awareness: Student-led Innovation in Campus Mental Health, a report showcasing student-led programs that are filling gaps in traditional mental health services and supports on campuses across the U.S. By highlighting the work of specific student leaders in mental health around the country, the report focuses on what is important to students and provides summaries and guides to programs that student advocates can bring to their colleges and universities. Full Story

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has awarded up to $61.1 million in grants to be disbursed over several years for suicide prevention programs. Full Story

Mindstrong Health is using a smartphone app to collect measures of people’s cognition and emotional health as indicated by how they use their phones, reported MIT Technology Review. Once a patient installs Mindstrong’s app, it monitors things like the way the person types, taps, and scrolls while using other apps. This data is encrypted and analyzed remotely using machine learning, and the results are shared with the patient and the patient’s medical provider. The seemingly mundane minutiae of how you interact with your phone offers surprisingly important clues to your mental health, according to Mindstrong’s research—revealing, for example, a relapse of depression. With details gleaned from the app, Mindstrong says, a patient’s doctor or other care manager gets an alert when something may be amiss and can then check in with the patient by sending a message through the app (patients, too, can use it to message their care provider). Full Story

A $2.5 million grant to the University of Arizona College of Nursing aims to provide patient access to the right kind of care for their unique needs. Specifically, the money will fund projects aimed at testing two approaches to mental healthcare for cancer patients and their family caregivers. The project will test precision mental healthcare, or the ability to connect patients with different types of mental healthcare and to adjust that care throughout the course of treatment. Researchers will use Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial, or SMART research methods, reported Patient Engagement HIT. Full Story

President Donald Trump signed into law the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act (H.R. 6). SUPPORT underscores nurses’ critical role in solving the opioid crisis by enabling nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe buprenorphine permanently with a medication-assisted treatment (MAT) waiver. This MAT prescribing authority is extended for five years to the other advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) specialties: certified nurse-midwives, clinical nurse specialists and certified registered nurse anesthetists. SUPPORT will also deploy more health experts by providing student loan relief of up to $250,000 to individuals that pursue substance use disorder treatment professions in underserved areas. Full Story

The largest-ever funding increase for Alzheimer’s and dementia research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was signed into law Sept. 28. The $425 million increase was advocated for by the Alzheimer’s Association, the Alzheimer’s Impact Movement (AIM) and its nationwide network of dedicated advocates. Full Story

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Alzheimer’s Association released the third edition of the Healthy Brain Initiative (HBI) Road Map. State and Local Public Health Partnerships to Address Dementia: The 2018- 2023 Road Map provides public health officials with a set of strategies to realize a better future for all communities impacted by dementia. To focus the public health response, experts developed 25 actions for public health leaders that are adaptable for each community’s specific needs. These actions are grounded in traditional public health strategies so leaders can easily and efficiently incorporate Alzheimer’s into existing public health initiatives. Full Story

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