Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are required to earn a specific amount of contact hours every year to maintain their American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) certification as well as their state medical board license.
When looking up your NP CE requirements, it may be confusing determining how many contact hours you need because the requirements may be listed out as CME credits or Continuing Education Units (CEUs). In addition, continuing education activities for NPs often list the number of contact hours they offer as CME credits or CEUs, making it difficult to pick the right activity to help meet your requirements.
What is the difference between CME and CEU
The difference between CME and CEU for Nurse Practitioners is that one CME credit is the equivalent to 1 contact hour and 1 CEU is equivalent to 10 contact hours. This standard conversion rule should make it simple when figuring out if an activity will meet your requirements. For example, the BoardVitals Pharmacology CE Board Review offers 25 CME credits or 2.5 CEUs, exactly enough to meet the AANP’s annual requirement of 25 Pharmacology CE hours.
Typically, both CME credits and CEU units are based on the assumption that 60 minutes of educational activity is the equivalent to 1 contact hour.
How NPs can earn CME credits or CEUs
Now that you know the difference between CEU and CME, you are ready to spend your budget on accredited CME programs wisely.
One of the top activities that can help you earn enough contact hours to meet your NP requirements is the BoardVitals Pharmacology CE Product. This question bank offers the opportunity for NPs to earn 25 Pharmacology contact hours. To earn these questions, Nurse Practitioners simply have to earn up-to-date board reviews questions online that will also help them broaden their knowledge on key pharmacology topics.
Check out our guide to Nurse Practitioner Continuing Education for more information on CE activities and other general continuing education information.