The European Multiple Sclerosis Platform’s conference in May served us with fantastic topics, ideas and many things to think about.
One of the conference’s parallel sessions presented a new way for MS Nurses across Europe to start or enhance their MS education in any setting, using five key modules of online learning. MS Nurse PROfessional, a project of the EMSP, is the first CME-accredited online platform for MS nurses in Europe. Topics like understanding MS, clinical presentation, diagnosis and assessment, treatment, care and support, all show current ways of dealing with patients and how to be the key link between neurologist and patient. Each module consists of submodules, supplementary links, videoclips and clinical cases. A new rehabilitation module will be added later this year. The course itself was developed by MS clinical care experts from Europe and was tested by healthcare professionals in the MS community. With 600,000 MS patients in Europe, treatment is diverse and often hard to manage. MS nurses, according to Mr John Golding, exiting president of the European Multiple Sclerosis Platform, are essential for assessing symptoms and targeting treatments. They also help adhering to medication schedules. Ongoing care of often declining health is vital for each patient with MS, and cannot be undervalued.While not every European country has dedicated MS nurses, the course will hopefully add to better care in those countries yet to jump on the bandwagon. Also, in the ever-changing field of new research data, it is important that nurses can keep developing and/or improving their knowledge across a wide range of needs and wishes from patients as well as others involved in MS care. MS Nurse PROfessional went live in Ireland in November 2013 and already proved its value in how it fitted in the variety of care MS patients will/might require during their lifetime. As central key worker, they need ongoing education in patient advocacy and training. MS Nurse PROfessional is widely accredited by the Royal College of Nursing, International Council of Nurses and many others. It is also endorsed by MS Ireland, HSE, Multiple Sclerosis Trust, Italian Ministry of Health amongst others. The program is now active in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK as well as Ireland. You can find more on www.msnursepro.org To start the training, please register on the MS Nurse PRO website first. Following this, the rest of your course will be internet-based, with download options available. Online tests will be taken at the end of each module, with a 75% or higher in order to get the qualification or credits.