American Association of Critical-Care Nurses

What AACN offers

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) is a professional association for nurses in acute, progressive and critical care, and for anyone choosing continuing education it is two products in one. For the individual nurse it is a continuing education (CE) library, a certification program and a membership. For a hospital educator or training team it is a course suite that can be run on AACN's own learning management system, the AACN LearnCenter, or on an LMS the institution already pays for. The free CE page describes AACN as "the largest specialty nursing organization of progressive and critical care nurses" and says it offers advocacy and support to more than 134,000 members. The homepage carries the line "Celebrating Excellence Since 1969".

AACN LearnCenter for hospitals and educators

The LearnCenter is the part of AACN that works like a training library for an organization. The LMS page calls it AACN's "user-friendly learning management system (LMS), offering support for learners, educators and administrators". It delivers AACN's suite of eLearning products, described as online courses offering the continuing education and professional training that progressive and critical care clinicians need "to maintain their edge" and support patient outcomes. The page says it was designed with educator and site manager needs in mind.

The features listed are practical ones for a nurse educator running a unit's training:

• courseware delivered directly to the learner, with each learner's progress recorded and kept throughout;
• reporting with detailed data on students, courses and groups;
• technical support from trained specialists "available 24/7, 365 days a year";
• notifications about course updates and maintenance;
• three access licenses for administrators, plus preview access to AACN's full online course portfolio, with a standard implementation;
• online training and guidance for managing and administering the LMS.

Two customers speak on the same page. Toni Gresham, a critical care nursing educator, says: "I've worked with AACN directly for use of ECCO for about 8 years; they have been extremely responsive and customer-oriented the whole time." Allison Mikula, a critical care residency coordinator, says: "We had the option to switch to a different vendor for ECCO but stayed due to the extra services, tracking and support." Both are talking about ECCO, which their units use through AACN.

Through an LMS the hospital already has

AACN recognizes that many institutions already subscribe to an LMS, so it also offers its eLearning suite through three distribution partners. The LMS page names them:

• symplr, which it describes as offering solutions to help organizations' nurses learn, grow and deliver quality care across the healthcare continuum, and as an LMS provider committed to giving nurses and nurse educators a way to organize web-based learning;
• HealthStream, which it says is dedicated to improving patient outcomes through clinical development, helps nurses advance their specialty practice with online critical care orientation and continuing education, and provides an LMS for educators and administrators to organize staff learning;
• Elsevier, described as a global publishing company acting as an LMS provider and AACN distribution partner for eLearning critical care courses.

For a training team, this means the choice is between AACN's own LearnCenter and buying the AACN courses inside the system the hospital already uses for other staff learning.

The CE library and membership

For the individual nurse, the core of the education offer is the CE library. The free CE page says AACN offers "a broad array of articles, sessions, videos and webinars across many clinical and practice topics", and that "AACN membership includes unlimited CEs, digital journal subscriptions and more". Joining as a member, the same page says, gives access to the entire library of CEs as well as clinical resources, journal subscriptions, online peer support and discounts.

Around the library sits a wider education section: a Webinar Series (the homepage promotes a 2026 Adult & Pediatric Sepsis Guideline Updates webinar), online courses through AACN's E-Learning program, publications, scholarships and the Voices in Nursing podcast. A virtual course on well-being and workplace change is advertised across the site. The account area for signed-in users has sections for certification, courses and prep, transcripts, collections, submissions and orders. Under networking, the homepage describes a private space, virtual or in person, "designed for sharing, learning and mentoring".

Free CE activities

AACN gives free access to a rotating set of CE activities. The page says these free CEs "offer a sample of the expert knowledge and evidence-based learning" AACN delivers, that the selected CEs "are free for a limited time", and that starting an activity and tracking CEs requires signing in or creating a free account. The featured activities are:

• Creating and Sustaining Healthy Work Environments (HWEs), on how to "improve workplace culture and nurse retention using AACN's standards for HWE", with a detailed case study and assessment tools;
• Reducing Hospital-Acquired Conditions in the PICU, on how high-risk rounding identified vulnerable patients and reduced hospital-acquired conditions by 46.5%;
• Non-OR Anesthesia: What Nurses Need to Know, on anesthesia outside the operating room, including airway obstruction and malignant hyperthermia, with 30% pharm content;
• Heart Vision: Demystifying Cardiac Diagnostic Imaging, covering stress tests and imaging studies including echocardiography, PET, CT and MRI;
• Evaluation of Feeding Tube Migration in Critical Care Patients, on verification practices that may reduce aspiration risk;
• Five Overlooked Topics in Healthcare Workplace Violence, an article on prevention and mitigation for nurses in nonpsychiatric settings.

Orientation, certification and unit culture

Two other parts of the site matter for training teams. The first is orientation: the homepage invites educators to "Implement online learning to provide standardized orientation to new and transitioning nurses", and its role-based section speaks of enhancing and standardizing orientation with online learning and new methodologies. The second is unit culture. The homepage says the six AACN Healthy Work Environments (HWE) standards "outline ingredients for success", and the site offers HWEAT-Team as a free assessment of a team's work environment. AACN also publishes the Scope and Standards for Acute and Critical Care Nursing Practice, which it says incorporates advances in scientific knowledge, clinical practice, technology and other changes in healthcare. CSI Academy is taking applications for its Nursing Workforce Solutions program.

Certification has its own section, with preparation tools and handbooks, renewal, micro-credentials, verification and certification discounts. The homepage suggests that nurses already certified, "perhaps as a CCRN or PCCN", consider adding a subspecialty credential, CMC (cardiac medicine) or CSC (cardiac surgery), and announces revised CMC and CSC exams launching Nov. 19, 2026. For leaders, a Staff Professional Development route invites them to invest in their team through certification, membership and scholarships.

Prices and access

None of these pages lists a price for membership, the LearnCenter or individual courses. The site links to a store of books, pocket cards, practice tools and certification reviews, and the footer points organizations to Enterprise Solutions and Group Discounts. The free CE activities need only a free account.

Who it suits

AACN suits two readers well. The first is the individual acute, progressive or critical care nurse who wants a steady supply of specialty CE from a clinical association, with certification and journal access in the same membership. The second is the hospital nurse educator or residency coordinator who needs a critical care course suite with progress tracking, group reporting and administrator licenses, either in the LearnCenter or inside symplr, HealthStream or Elsevier. The caveat is the narrow focus: this is specialty content for acute and critical care nursing, not a general course catalog, so a team training staff outside those units will need another source.