New Contact Hours Enhance Value of ENA’s Industry-Leading ESI Triage Courses
March 17, 2021 • Emergency Severity Index Triage
Nurses who complete ESI Triage Adult and Pediatric courses can now earn contact hours
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (March 17, 2021) – The Emergency Nurses Association on Wednesday bolstered the value of its Emergency Severity Index triage training courses by offering contact hours to nurses who complete this vitally important triage education.
Since 1998, the ESI program has been the leading triage resource relied upon by nearly every emergency nurse in the United States to assess patient acuity based on their presentation in the emergency department and the expected level of care they will require.
In 2019, ENA acquired the five-level ESI triage system with plans to align it with the association’s high-quality standards for educational and skill development resources. Since that acquisition, ENA has re-energized the course’s look and feel to drive better learning retention by using an easier-to-navigate design that allows nurses to go at their own pace, improves accessibility to key information and integrates more user customization through practice scenarios that guide their understanding of the ESI algorithm.
Additionally, ENA has expanded ESI’s reach by working with hospital systems interested in providing their nurses with high-quality triage education and, in 2020, partnering with the Ministry of Health in Poland to bring triage training to nearly 1,400 nurses there.
As with other nursing specialties, emergency nurses must engage in continuing education on a yearly basis. The opportunity for nurses to earn contact hours when taking the Adult/Pediatric Course – including the Spanish-language version – and the Pediatric Course provides additional incentive for emergency nurses and hospital leaders to turn to ESI for high-quality triage education.
“There is no dispute – being able to quickly and accurately triage every person who arrives in the emergency department sets the tone for delivering the best care possible to patients when they need us most,” said ENA President Ron Kraus, MSN, RN, EMT, CEN, ACNS-BC, TCRN. “Aligning CNE and with the premier triage education is a no-brainer as part of ENA’s commitment to helping ED nurses grow clinically and professionally.”
ENA’s commitment to triage extends beyond ESI as it is actively involved in generating original research and developing new education to support improvements in triage and clinical decision making. Additionally, ENA has partnered with Mednition to use clinical data science and machine-learning technology to help nurses enhance their triage skills and improve their decision-making abilities.
To learn more about ESI, visit ena.org/ESI.
