As you’re faced with the challenge of finding alternatives to clinical hours for students, you have a unique opportunity to provide consistent patient experiences for all students. While they may not be in the actual clinical environment, students can have an authentic experience with Simulation Learning Systems (SLS) by navigating the EHR and using its included resources such as Clinical Key and Clinical pharmacology.
SLS provides complete resources for patient simulations in your simulation lab. From preparation through debrief, SLS has tools for students and faculty to create a simulated patient care experience as programs move to a period of exclusive online instruction. The SLS scenarios are a great resource here as well.
Here is a sample plan for using these simulations virtually:
- Ask students to complete corresponding reading, SLS pre-sim exercises, and the pre-sim quiz
- Create a plan for the patient encounter and review the chart of the assigned patient. Instead of the interaction with the simulation mannequin, faculty can provide prompts as appropriate for the patient and the course/clinical objectives:
- Priority assessments for this patient
- Expected outcomes
- Potential complications to watch for (what would those look like & how to respond)
- Prioritize completion of orders
- Consider which tasks/aspects of care can be delegated
- What assessment findings might cause concern for administration of an ordered medication
- Complete a discharge plan
- Design appropriate patient education
- Create a discussion board to address some of this, do it by webinar, or have students complete and submit online
- Complete post-sim exercises and/or post-sim quiz
- Students can also complete pre-clinical manager (located in SimChart EHR) or the clinical paperwork typically required in the course
These cases can also be used as a resource for course instruction:
- Use an SLS scenario’s patient report and build a discussion board to address priorities of care
- Have students review the case and encourage students to consider potential “what if” scenarios. The scenario phases in the implementation module are a great resource for this! For instance, how might the patient’s vital signs look if a particular medication isn’t administered or if the patient experienced an allergic reaction.
For resources and advice on teaching remotely, click here.
