IDF Continuing Education Course for Nurses: Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases and Immunoglobulin Therapy

The Immune Deficiency Foundation (IDF) is proud to offer this Online Continuing Education Course, developed as an initiative of the IDF Nurse Advisory Committee. This free, accredited course enhances the knowledge of the nurse clinician by providing an update on primary immunodeficiency diseases, immunoglobulin therapies and the nurse's role with these therapies.

Any nurse who is involved with administration and management of immunoglobulin therapy or the disease states where immunoglobulin is used would find this program very informative and applicable to practice.

Experience the convenience of online continuing education while earning five free CE credit hours!

Target Audience: Nurses

Program Goal

To enhance the knowledge of the nurse clinican by providing an update on primary immunodeficiency disease and immunoglobulin therapy by defining the differences between intravenous immunoglobulin therapy (IVIG) and subcutaneous immunoglobulin therapy (SCIG) and the nurse's role with these therapies.

Participants will learn to:

Describe the spectrum of disease presentation for primary immunodeficiency (PIDD)

Discuss the most common PIDD-humoral antibody deficiency

Identify the treatments used within the most common PIDD-humoral antibody deficiency

Understand the use of IVIG for treatment of PIDD

Understand the use of SCIG for treatment of PIDD

Describe the differences between IVIG and SCIG

Understand the clinician’s role with SCIG

Presentations and Presenters

Overview of Ig Therapy and Disease States in which it is Utilized

Jordan Orange, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Pediatrics

Division of Allergy and Immunology

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Philadelphia, PA

Primary Immunodeficiencies Combined T-cell and/or B-cell Immune Defects

Mark Ballow, MD

Division of Allergy, Immunology and Pediatric Rheumatology

Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo

SUNY Buffalo

School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

Buffalo, NY

Intravenous Immunoglobulin Therapy (IVIG)

Kristin Epland, MSN, FNP-C

Midwest Immunology Clinic

Plymouth, MN

Subcutaneous Immunoglobulin Therapy (SCIG)

M. Elizabeth Younger, CRNP, PhD

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, MD

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The Nurse-Family Partnership for first-time moms and their babies

Image Courtesy of nursefamilypartnership.org

A program designed to help low-income, first-time moms and their babies is coming to northern Idaho.

The Nurse-Family Partnership is expected to start in Kootenai and Shoshone counties within the coming year, thanks to a collaboration between the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and Spokane Regional Health District, which offers the same program in Washington.

Nurse-Family Partnership®, a maternal and early childhood health program, fosters long-term success for first-time moms, their babies, and society.

Nurse-Family Partnership's maternal health program introduces vulnerable first-time parents to caring maternal and child health nurses. This program allows nurses to deliver the support first-time moms need to have a healthy pregnancy, become knowledgeable and responsible parents, and provide their babies with the best possible start in life. The relationship between mother and nurse provides the foundation for strong families, and lives are forever changed – for the better.

The program allows public health nurses to visit interested first-time expectant moms every week or every other week until the baby is born. After the birth, the nurses continue regular visits until the child turns 2.

Officials said that since the program began in Spokane, Wash., in 2008, it has served 431 families, with 174 families currently enrolled.

In Idaho, the program is funded through a federal grant.

Laura DeBoer, health program manager for Idaho's maternal, infant and early childhood home visiting program, said contracting with the established program in Spokane will give Idaho's program a better chance of success. In Spokane, officials credit the program with improving prenatal health, reducing childhood injuries, increasing the time between the births of first and second children, increasing maternal employment rates and helping get kids ready for school.

"It's just amazing, some of the changes that can occur in these families," said Susan Schultz, who runs the Spokane health district's Nurse-Family Partnership.

Laura Nash, a 25-year-old single mother in Spokane, is the first graduate of the program there. Three years ago, she was a high school graduate working as a cashier and was about to become a mother for the first time. Nash was scared because she didn't know where her life was headed, and she feared she would ruin her child's life.

Today, she is working as a certified nursing assistant and studying toward becoming a nurse like her "mentor for life" — Rhonda Shrivastava, her nurse-family partner. Her 3-year-old daughter, Arianna, is "a very amazing, precocious, wonderful little girl who's going to go far. I wanted my daughter to have a better life, but I didn't know how."

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