The years spent in higher education are considered to be some of the most stressful years before entering the workforce, yet for nurses and other healthcare professionals, continuing education never stops.
In fact, nurses are required to have a certain number of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) in order to renew their license, obtain certification in a specialty, and more. The number of CEU requirements depends on the state.
There are additional benefits of CEUs for nurses aside from meeting state requirements. Healthcare procedures are constantly changing, and nurses who are not up to date may unintentionally provide their patients with inadequate care. Healthcare can sometimes be a thankless industry, and taking CEUs can help them grow as an employee, receive praise from colleagues, and ultimately improve their reputation.
Some CEU courses for nurses can be expensive, which is why we compiled a list of the top five sites to get free CEUs for nurses.
Top 5 Sites:
1) Intiva Health: The technology-based healthcare company has an online catalog of courses with hundreds of free CEUs for nurses that can be taken on any device. Nurses can filter the catalog based upon their state, accreditation, and specific specialties to find the most beneficial CEUs for their career. Additionally, they can track the progress of the credits that they earn, visually see how close they are to meeting their state’s requirements, and store certificates of course completion in a secure, online personal safe. The variety of courses in different specialties as well as offerings for all 50 states makes this site ideal for permanent nursing jobs or those who prefer travel nursing. More info on Facebook.
2) Nurse: Similar to Intiva Health, Nurse also offers a wide variety of CEUs for nurses in various specialties for different states. The courses are also filtered by specialty, license, and state requirements. However, there are far less CEUs for nurses that are completely free and there is no way to track progress or store certificates of completion. To access many of the “free” courses, one must sign up for a Nursing CE subscription plan, with prices starting at $49.95.
3) IncredibleHealth: Incredible Health also offers free CEUs for nurses in all 50 states, accredited by the ANCC like the other websites on this list. However, their library of courses is not as extensive. Similar to Nurse.c0m, there is no way to track the progress of meeting a specific state’s requirements or store certificates of completion online. Upon completion of a CEU course, one must print their certificate.
4) NurseCEU: This website offers accredited CEUs from many of the companies in the Intiva Health and Nurse catalog, such as Wild Iris Medical Education and Horizon CME. However, their selection of free CEUs for nurses is much, much smaller—only offering less than 40 courses for free. They have an extensive selection of paid courses yet lack the ability to store certificates of completion online.
5) NursingCE.com: This website has an extremely limited selection of free CEUs for nurses yet offers a unique model for its courses. All of the educational material is presented up front. After a user reviews all of the material, they take an assessment. If someone scores 80 percent or better on the online test, they are able to download a completion certificate. For the courses which are not free, one must submit a payment before they are able to download their certificate of completion. There is no ability to store certificates of completion online.
More Reasons Why CEUs for Nurses are Important:
1. Prevent burnout:
Given the events of the past year and a half along with nursing in general, it is easy for nurses to sometimes feel as if they may be losing their passion or worse experiencing burnout. Taking CEUs online is a great way for nurses to reignite the spark of passion that may be lost. As mentioned above, CEUs are diverse, and nurses can often choose which topics they’d like to study to expand their skillset, focus on a specialty, meet requirements of their employer, or renew their license.
2) Opportunities for financial gain:
Completing multiple CEUs can put a nurse ahead of the pack and provide more support to advance their career. If a nurse completes extra CEUs, especially ones that are not specifically for license renewal or mandated by their employer, is a unique way to build credibility. The more CEUs a nurse takes, the greater their skillset is and the easier it can be to ask for a financial raise.
3) Stay informed with the latest care procedures:
The COVID-19 Pandemic reshaped healthcare as we know it more than any event in recent history. Every healthcare professional, especially nurses, had to learn new care procedures and are continuing to learn how to deal with the novel coronavirus. As new variants of the virus emerge, so will care practices. CEUs for nurses are an easy and ideal way to learn about the most up-to-date procedures on how to properly care for patients who may be experiencing new and different symptoms than the majority of other patients.
More about getting free CEUs at https://ready-doc.com/home/
