Advanced Practice

ENA's Institute for Emergency Nursing Advanced Practice

ENA is dedicated to supporting all emergency advanced practice nurses including nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists. To show this support, ENA established the Institute for Emergency Nursing Advanced Practice in 2014. Since that time, the ENAP Advisory Council has provided ENA with guidance on key topics specific to advanced practice and has developed a variety of resources needed to support its growing APRN members.

Chelsea M. Collins, DNP, RN, APNP, ACCNS-AG, CEN, SANE-A, AFN-C

Chelsea Collins has worked in rural and urban EDs, legislative offices and in classrooms throughout throughout her career-long quest to keep learning and growing professionally while advocating for nurses and patients. She is an advanced practice nurse prescriber and a clinical nurse specialist who lives in Wisconsin and works in Minnesota.

“Getting my advanced practice degree changed the way that I view nursing and how I understand the world,” Collins said, noting she always knew she would earn a terminal degree in whatever career she chose. “Formal or informal, advanced education, I do think, is very important in our profession. We are inundated with so much information and technology that if we don’t step up to the plate as individuals, we’re never going to be able to transform our profession or transform our practice.”

Collins joined ENA as a student and has been active in two state chapters. She currently co-chairs the Wisconsin State ENA government relations committee, and she also serves on the Wisconsin Nurses Association’s policy committee.

“One of the big things we’re trying to navigate is access to care, so we can do our best to advocate for best practices when it comes to APRNs and APNPs and have them advocate and work within their scope to meet the needs of the communities we’re serving,” she said.

In 2023, Collins spoke at ENA General Assembly in support of a resolution regarding the use of the title doctor for nurses who have completed doctoral education. In addition to ENAP Advisory Council, she is a current member of the ENA Foundation Scholarship Committee and previously served on the Resolutions Committee. .

“Involvement in ENA and networking and connections is a very powerful thing, and that’s why I continue to give back to ENA,” Collins said.

In addition to an ENA scholarship that helped her fund graduate school, she also “found this wonderful network of people I can reach out to, to me help navigate and give me a second set of eyes.”

In her current roles, Collins is a float nurse primarily working in critical care at University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital and teaching clinicals for St. Catherine University in Minneapolis. She is also a SANE, serving on the St. Croix Valley Sexual Assault Response Team, which covers parts of western Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota.

Collins initially considered a career in forensic anthropology. One of her professors had been a labor and delivery nurse while pursuing her PhD in anthropology, and Collins decided to follow suit. She knew labor and delivery wasn’t what she wanted and quickly learned she loved emergency nursing. Her first job in the ED was in Denver, where she also volunteered as a state legislative policy fellow for the House Committee on Health and Insurance.

Collins’ first ED experience actually came years earlier, when she was a 14-year-old volunteer in an Idaho hospital. She recalled watching efforts save a man who had been injured in an industrial accident at a fertilizer plant.

“I remember watching them in the trauma bay treat this guy and doing everything they could to advocate for this patient,” Collins said. “The moment when they decided stop efforts, and everybody was just defeated they couldn’t save this individual, that vibe I remember distinctly. And I remember the charge nurse that I was following, how he navigated talking the patients wife and explaining things. That I always carried with me.”

Education

Procedural Sedation and Analgesia for the Advanced Practice Clinician
This course will prepare the Advanced Practice Clinician (APC) to safely provide procedural sedation and analgesia in the emergency care environment. It includes didactic content with current definitions, pharmacologic interventions and guidelines. Learn More

Practice Resources and White Papers

2021 Emergency Nurse Practitioner Competencies

The American Academy of Emergency Nurse Practitioners and the Emergency Nurses Association are pleased to announce the 2021 Emergency Nurse Practitioner Competencies are available.

This document represents the integration of previously published competencies from AAENP (2018) and ENA (2019). This integration was led by members of the Emergency Nurse Practitioner Competencies Work Group which included representatives from AAENP and ENA, and some individuals who worked on the most recent sets of competencies from each organization. The workgroup utilized an external validation process for review and revision of these competencies which are aligned with other national initiatives and documents that shape and define nurse practitioner curricular development. In addition to supporting emergency nurse practitioner academic preparation, the resulting unified set of ENP competencies supports current regulatory frameworks, credentialing and insurer challenges.

Practice Resources and White Papers

Click here to access the following practice resources and white papers:

• APRN position statement
• Competencies for nurse practitioners in emergency care
• Competencies for clinical nurse specialists in emergency care
• Scope and standards (includes APRNS)

Resources

Advanced Practice CONNECT Community

The Advanced Practice CONNECT Community is a space for members to network, ask questions, and focus on topics relevant to advanced practice. All ENA members with advanced practice credentials are automatically added to the community. Already a member? Click here to log in and access the community! Not a member? Learn more about membership here.

ENAP is in the process of developing a library for APRN-specific guidelines and recommendations used in clinical practice. The APRN Library will be located in the Advanced Practice CONNECT community.

Advanced Practice Reference Library

ENAP is excited to share the development of a reference library, which is available now through the AP Connect Community. To access these APRN-specific guidelines and recommendations in clinical practice, visit here and select the “APRN Practice Resource Library” folder.

A special thank you to the following contributors for their help in the resource library development: Heather Burgett, Meg Carmen, Nancy Denke, Bill Fiebig, David House, Audrey Snyder, and Julie Wescott.

Awards

ENA's Annual Achievement Awards recognize individuals who exemplify exceptional performance in professional practice, innovation, leadership or advocacy.

The Frank L. Cole Nurse Practitioner Award highlights excellence as a nurse practitioner in emergency care. The NP is recognized by peers, nursing and physician colleagues, and patients as a clinical expert who delivers compassionate, competent care in an emergency care setting. The recipient is actively involved in promoting the role of NPs and strengthening their image in emergency care.

The Clinical Nurse Specialist Award recognizes excellence as a clinical nurse specialist in the emergency care setting. The CNS is recognized by the emergency department staff as an expert, in practice or education, who makes significant contributions to practice or to the professional development of others.

Click here to view all ENA awards.

ENA Mentoring Program

Are you looking for a way to share your expertise and support ENA members? Get involved by signing up to be a mentor! Learn more.