This activity focuses on enhancing participants’ knowledge and skills in the legal and ethical aspects of healthcare coordination and communication. It will highlight the essential elements and requirements of a valid lawsuit and will address care coordinators’ ethical responsibilities regarding standards of practice, codes of conduct and ethical decision-making. Participants will review accurate documentation practices that ensure compliance and improve interprofessional communication and will come away with additional insights into navigating legal and ethical challenges they may encounter in their practice.

Clinical practice guidelines are used in health care as an educational tool to improve patient care as a potential solution to reduce inappropriate variations in care. Opioid prescribing guidelines provide clear and comprehensive, evidence-based recommendations incorporating current information and practices for practitioners. This activity will examine the scope, impact, key statistics and factors contributing to the opioid crisis and highlight the current recommended opioid prescribing guidelines, their challenges and the role of state prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMP). Strategies to aid in implementing the opioid prescribing guidelines and to mitigate the opioid crisis will also be discussed.

People at risk of suicide are often seen in health care settings, and health care organizations have a unique opportunity to identify and facilitate suicide prevention. Although there are long-standing clinical best practices, gaps still exist. Suicide Risk Formulation (SRF) is a process by which a clinician forms a judgment about a patient’s foreseeable risk of suicidal behavior based on data collected from a Suicide Risk Assessment (SRA). Risk formulation may indicate that enhanced interventions and increased support may be needed. Treatment should focus on reducing the immediate suicide risk and exploring any underlying mental-health and/or substance-use disorder. This activity is designed to support health care professionals through risk-mitigation situations by providing an advanced continuing education opportunity to improve practice, skills and knowledge.

This activity will explore updated approaches to the management of glaucoma—the “silent thief of sight” that affects an estimated 3 million Americans. It will examine the latest evidence from recent studies on minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) procedures and discuss comparative data on more invasive surgical techniques such as trabeculectomy and tube shunt surgery. Patient cases will be introduced to enhance participants’ understanding of the glaucoma treatment process. In addition, potential future innovations in glaucoma treatment will be discussed.