Association of Rehabilitation Nurses Provides Insight to IMPACT Act with Online Boot Camp

Newswise — CHICAGO (April 29, 2016): Association of Rehabilitation Nurses (ARN) has announced its IMPACT Act Boot Camp Series to kick off Tuesday, June 7. The online series helps to prepare those working in Post-Acute Care (PAC) settings for the requirement to submit standardized assessment data to CMS. On October 6, 2014, the Improvising Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act became law. The Act requires Individual practitioners in Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (IRFs), Long-Term Care Hospitals (LTCHs), Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs), and Home Health Agencies (HHAs) to prepare for the requirement to submit standardized assessment data to CMS, starting October 1, 2016.

ARN’s IMPACT Act Boot Camp is a series of four, monthly, 60-minute eCourses. The first session provides a practical overview of how the IMPACT Act affects PAC settings and suggests how individuals should prepare for the change. Each of the subsequent eCourses highlight specific Quality Indicators and address scoring, documentation, and goal setting. -Part 1 – Are you ready for the Impact Act? Tuesday, June 7, 1 pm Central -Part 2 – Scoring Items for Functional Abilities and Cognitive Patterns, Tuesday, July 12, 1 pm Central -Part 3 – Scoring Items for Skin Conditions, Tuesday, August 9, 1 pm Central -Part 4 – Scoring Items for Incidence of Major Falls, Tuesday, September 20, 1 pm Central

Nurses can earn up to 4.5 Nursing Contact Hours once they have taken the series. Registration can be found at www.rehabnurse.org.

ARN member Michele Cournan, DNP RN CRRN ANP-BC, Quality Risk Manager, Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital, Schenectady, N.Y. serves as faculty for each of the four 60-minute webinars. Cournan has more than 20 years of experience in rehabilitation – in both the IRF and SNF settings. She has been focusing efforts on the IMPACT Act since 2015, examining the effect the forthcoming changes will have on clinicians, documentation, and post-acute care settings.

As to why Cournan has followed the IMPACT Act so passionately for the last year, she states, “As a Quality Risk Manager, it is very important to me that all members of the health care team work cohesively and understand how to utilize the new common standards and definitions in the exchange of information among post-acute care and other providers. With all post-acute care providers collecting the same data, we will be able to better facilitate coordinated care and improve outcomes for each and every patient and the family members involved.”

Association of Rehabilitation Nurses (ARN)ARN is a professional healthcare association dedicated to promoting and advancing professional rehabilitation nursing practice through education, advocacy, collaboration, and research to enhance the quality of life for those affected by disability and chronic illness. For more information about ARN, please visit www.rehabnurse.org or call 800.229.7530.