Safer care at home: use of simulation training to improve standards

Abstract

One of the fundamental problems facing providers and commissioners of health services is how to maintain the skills and knowledge of the workforce during the initial development and implementation of home care services. This small-scale project sought to ascertain if it was possible to use human patient simulation scenarios to educate community nurses about how to recognize when care at home is appropriate and when it is not. A series of scenarios were developed and delivered to small groups of community nursing staff. A total of 18 qualified nurses took part in the project. Participants were asked to report their level of confidence in the diagnosis, management and recognition of patient deterioration for each of the scenarios prior to and after the session. The results show increased confidence across all participants in each of the scenarios.

Emergency airway and ventilator procedures for community based home care staff validation of an educational program

“…Our program design utilized a unique combination of didactic and simulation including both tracheostomy and ventilator content in a short amount of time, focused exclusively on the most at risk situations including tracheostomy decannulation/plugging and ventilator malfunction. Our results suggest this was effective and are consistent with others who note that patient simulation was an effective teaching method and provided a mechanism to create participant confidence and competence thereby promoting safety with care at home. Our program is the first to describe this short, risk focused, simulation program focusing on tracheostomy, and ventilator care specifically designed for HCS.…”

“…Our program built upon the participants' previous knowledge of tracheostomy and ventilator management . Self‐evaluation was utilized in this educational model because it is paramount to creating a deep understanding and incorporation of the educational material …”

Nursing Student Perceptions of a Community-Based Home Visit Experienced by a Role-Play Simulation

“…Roleplay, standardized clients, interactive gaming, and the use of high-fidelity patient simulators are all documented as effective teaching strategies for nursing students in CHN (Hogan, Kapralos, Cristancho, Finney, & Dubrowski, 2011;Unsworth, Tuffnell, & Platt, 2011;Yeager & Gotwals, 2010). It is only recently that studies examining the use of simulation for community health nursing (CHN) education have appeared in the literature.…”

Gaming Simulation as Health and Safety Training for Home Health Care Workers

“…Clinical simulations offer an alternative to more passive methods of instruction such as classroom lecture, reading, and video viewing. Simulations, which often include physical mockups, mannequins, theatre props, and/or actors, are more interactive and can incorporate the more typical complexities of a home healthcare environment (see Figure 1) (Polivka, Chaudry, & Crawford, 2012; Unsworth, Tuffnell, & Platt, 2011). When providing education on home safety issues, in-person, on-site clinical simulations provide naturalistic ways to expose trainees to hazards in the environment as they navigate through the space.…”