Preparing for the COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on a Nursing Simulation Curriculum

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Healthcare Simulation
• Emergency Preparedness

Background:

• COVID-19 pandemic necessitated campus closures and clinical placement suspensions for nursing programs.
• Maintaining undergraduate nursing simulation programs posed significant challenges during this period.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a nursing school's strategy for sustaining its undergraduate simulation program.
• To detail the implementation of virtual clinical education during campus and clinical site closures.

Main Methods:

• Replaced traditional clinical hours with virtual clinical education.
• Utilized telehealth with standardized patients (SPs), commercial virtual simulations, and virtual skills instruction.
• Integrated remote simulations with SPs to substitute for direct patient care hours.

Main Results:

• Virtual clinical education and SP-based telehealth simulations offered an alternative for 50% of required direct patient care hours.
• A total of 18,403 clinical hours were completed by 244 students through virtual simulation methods.

Conclusions:

• Developing robust virtual simulation and remote SP simulation processes is crucial for emergency preparedness.
• A detailed plan is essential for nursing schools to address campus closures and ensure program continuity.
• The experience highlights the importance of proactive planning for unforeseen disruptions in nursing education.