AAPACN is dedicated to supporting post-acute care nurses provide quality care.
OM Playbook
Strategic Roadmap and Tools for Implementing Your AAPACN Organizational Membership
This is your comprehensive guide to successfully launching, managing, and maximizing the value of your AAPACN membership across all your facilities. Whether you’re just getting started or refreshing your approach, this playbook equips you with the tools, timelines, and best practices to fully engage your team, align your membership with organizational goals, and elevate care delivery.
After your AAPACN membership team has received your facility and staff lists, you’re ready to start rolling out AAPACN to your teams. Here are the steps we recommend completing in the first few weeks. A checklistis provided to help you stay on track!
Take these steps to maximize your AAPACN organizational membership:
With a clear rollout plan, AAPACN membership becomes a powerful driver of accuracy, quality, and staff development. By engaging teams at every level, you’ll see stronger outcomes, higher retention, and a measurable return on your investment.
Step
Action Items / Details
Build Awareness Quickly
Facility Leadership Kickoff Email: Send a message from leadership announcing the AAPACN membership, emphasizing quality improvement, reimbursement optimization, and career development.
Facility Posters with QR Code: Display posters (11" x 17" and 8.5" x 14") in breakrooms linking staff directly to “How to Access Your Membership.”
Manager Talking Points: Equip DNSs and MDS coordinators with a concise one-pager detailing key membership benefits and encouraging usage.
Tie Resources to Organizational Goals
Quality Measure Alignment: Leverage QCP® and other toolsfor specific CMS quality metrics.
Survey Readiness Teams: Use Survey Prep tools, mock audits, checklists, and guidance for survey preparation.
Reimbursement Focus: Mandate RAC-CT® certification for MDS coordinators to reduce coding errors and optimize reimbursement.
Leverage your AAPACN Organizational Membership to ensure your member facilities deliver quality care efficiently and deepen your team’s competencies to drive overall outcomes.
Step
Details / Action Items
Use In-Service Training
AAPACN’s expert-developed in-service education materials are a great way to engage your team and provide ongoing training. Add them to your internal training calendar.
Share Essential AAPACN Resources
These resources are fundamental for every member facility. Share them with facility leadership and champions to integrate into each facility’s operations. Download this tracking form to monitor assignments:
Offer the PDPM Documentation Essentials for the IDT workshop to your interdisciplinary team. This ten-course, on-demand program builds skills for accurate documentation, MDS coding, and PDPM reimbursement. Assign courses to staff as part of structured training plans.
Validate NAC Expertise
Use the Nurse Assessment Coordinator (NAC) Competency Evaluation to assess your NAC’s proficiency in completing the MDS 3.0 accurately, based on the latest RAI User’s Manual guidance. This tool helps ensure compliance, supports quality resident care, identifies areas for targeted training, and provides a validated demonstration of MDS coding expertise.
Cultivate Your Team
Work with facility leaders to identify staff for certification preparedness and enrollment at each facility. Facilities with one or more AAPACN certified staff have 15% higher overall CMS Star Rating than those without certified staff.
Each quarter, AAPACN hosts exclusive virtual roundtables for organizational membership leaders. Engage with AAPACN nurse experts and peers in an open discussion and Q&A session on the latest hot topics and regulatory issues.
Provides an at-a-glance overview of the four AAPACN certifications, outlining goals and target audience for each, helping staff identify the right certification path.
Assesses a NAC’s proficiency in completing the MDS 3.0 accurately, ensuring compliance, supporting quality resident care, identifying training needs, and validating MDS coding expertise.
As the primary contact for your organization, you have 24/7 access to the Organizational Membership Dashboard. Our team has prepared resources to make managing your account easy:
