At AACN, our goal is to help acute, progressive and critical care nurses stay at the forefront of healthcare. Our education and professional development resources are designed to meet your needs, providing you with expert knowledge and practical tools to deliver the highest-quality care.
The following collection represents the resources our community of nurses turned to most often in the past year. We’re confident you will find something to enhance your practice and optimize care of patients, families and yourself. Here’s to another year of taking on new challenges and reinvigorating a passion for nursing and lifelong learning!
Journal Articles
From bedside care to research, AACN’s nationally recognized journals present evidence-based clinical information and research, offering the latest in acute, progressive and critical care nursing. Here are the most-read journal articles from 2025.
- Surrogate Decision-Makers' Trust in Health Care Professionals in the Adult Intensive Care Unit: A Scoping Review (Critical Care Nurse) – A short interview video with the author is available along with the full article. The review examines what factors influence surrogate decision-makers’ trust in ICU healthcare professionals and highlights behaviors nurses can use to support families and guide their decisions.
- Availability of Advanced Practice Providers in Adult Intensive Care Units in the United States: A Survey (American Journal of Critical Care) – This survey examines how advanced practice providers (APPs) are staffed in U.S. adult ICUs. It finds that both APPs and physicians-in-training often work together, and that state laws may affect APP availability.
- Transforming the Work Environment: A Different Approach to Combating Nurse Burnout (AACN Advanced Critical Care) – This article explores a new perspective on addressing nurse burnout by focusing on how workplace stressors are perceived and managed. It highlights strategies for fostering positive thinking and practices to support nurses’ well-being and improve patient care.
CE Activities
AACN’s continuing education (CE) library contains over 500 sessions, articles and videos. These learning activities span a broad range of topics and specialties along the nursing career continuum. Your colleagues most often selected these four learning activities to earn CE contact hours/CERPs.
- Integration of Rapid Response Teams and Early Warning Systems to Reduce Cardiac Arrests and Intensive Care Unit Readmissions (Critical Care Nurse) – This summary explores how high-acuity response teams use early warning systems and proactive rounding to detect patient deterioration. It highlights strategies and tools, like the Rothman Index and PeraWatch, to prevent ICU readmissions and unplanned care escalations.
- Optimized Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy to Target Renal Recovery (Recorded NTI Session) – This session covers CRRT modalities, best practices and troubleshooting strategies to help nurses deliver safe, high-quality care. It also highlights approaches to maintain nurse competency and improve CRRT training program outcomes.
- Secondary Headache: Learning Diagnostic Reasoning in Complex Cases (AACN Advanced Critical Care) – This article guides ACNPs through case-based diagnostic reasoning for complex secondary headaches. It highlights tools and strategies to improve reasoning skills and safely evaluate patients with red-flag signs.
- The “8 D’s” of High-Flow Nasal Cannula Risk: A Scoping Review (American Journal of Critical Care) – This review identifies eight key risks for adults receiving high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) therapy and examines how patient deterioration is described in the literature. It offers insights nurses can use to monitor patients and anticipate complications during HFNC care.
Webinars
The AACN Critical Care Webinar Series presents the latest evidence-based learning and clinical practices in acute, progressive and critical care. These expert-led educational sessions put conceptual knowledge into practice, offering both knowledge and tools to enhance patient outcomes. The webinars are free to view and each offers up to 1.0 CE contact hour. These were the most viewed webinars in 2025:
- Awake and Walking ICU: Mastery of the ABCDEF Bundle – ICU survivors discuss their rehabilitation and the lifelong impact of ICU-acquired weakness. Learn how to appropriately choose sedation and utilize early mobility in the ICU to maximize patient safety and optimize outcomes.
- IV Smart Pumps: Bridging Expectation and Reality – Learn how nurse-led research has revealed IV smart pump design limitations that hinder patient safety, highlighting the need for nurse input to advance infusion safety.
CSI Projects
As an experiential nursing leadership and innovation program, AACN’s Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy provides nurses with the knowledge, skills and support to lead their peers in creating unit-based change. Participants develop and implement initiatives in their unit that address some of healthcare’s most challenging issues while measurably improving patient outcomes and hospital bottom lines. In 2025, your colleagues were most interested in the following CSI projects:
- Just Don’t: Unplanned Extubation – This project implemented a prevention bundle and risk assessment wheel in adult ICUs to improve extubation timing and compliance with safety practices. While unplanned extubations did not decrease, the project improved early extubation rates and bundle adherence, and provided lessons other units can apply for their own change initiatives.
- Don't Miss a Beat If Your Patient's Too Sweet – This CSI Academy video presentation shares a unit-based initiative to reduce hyperglycemic events in postoperative cardiothoracic patients. Nurses can learn from the project’s approach and outcomes and consider how to apply similar change concepts and tools in their own units.
Other Clinical Resources
AACN develops a wide range of content on topics including clinical, leadership, staffing and well-being, with a focus on providing essential clinical and educational resources to help you safely care for patients.
From blogs and podcasts to books and online courses, here are the resources your colleagues most engaged with in 2025:
- The Journey to Joy: My Struggles With Health Anxiety Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (Blog) – A critical care nurse shares her experience with health anxiety OCD and PTSD, worsened by caring for high-risk patients. She describes panic attacks, obsessive worry and disrupted daily life, and how therapy, mindfulness and support helped her manage the symptoms. Her story highlights ICU nurses’ mental health challenges and the importance of seeking help and prioritizing well-being
- Transforming Nurse Retention Through Coaching and Mentorship (Nurse Story) – As a way to address increasing levels of nurse burnout and turnover, a health center developed a coaching and mentorship program for its staff. This innovative approach resulted in a greater sense of belonging for nurses, reduced anxiety and increased retention rates.
- Nurse Fatigue: Sleep Safety and Smarter Solutions (Podcast) – This podcast explores how long shifts and poor sleep affect nurses and patient safety. Experts share strategies such as power naps, smarter scheduling and organizational support to help nurses stay alert, healthy and safe on the job.
- New to ICU: A Visual Guide to Critical Care Nursing, 2nd ed. (Book) – This colorful, easy-to-follow guide helps new and aspiring ICU nurses master critical care concepts. Designed by ICU nurses, it simplifies complex topics and supports learning on the go in a fast-paced environment.
- AACN Hemodynamic Principles and Management Pocket Reference Card (Pocket Card) – This laminated card gives nurses quick access to essential hemodynamic concepts, including heart rate, preload, afterload, contractility, oxygenation and fluid responsiveness indicators. It’s a handy tool for bedside decision-making in critical care.
- Adult CCRN Certification Review Course Online - Individual Purchase (Certification Review Course) – This comprehensive online course helps nurses prepare for the CCRN Adult certification exam with in-depth coverage of clinical judgment and professional caring topics. It offers flexible learning, practice questions and test-taking strategies to support certification for direct care, tele-critical care or knowledge-focused nurses.
- ECCO 4: Caring for Patients with Multisystem Disorders - ICU (Online Course) – This modular course guides nurses through shock types, the sepsis-MODS continuum, rhabdomyolysis, necrotizing fasciitis and behavioral issues such as alcohol withdrawal. Using evidence-based strategies and real-life scenarios, it equips ICU and progressive care nurses with the knowledge to safely assess and treat complex multisystem patients.