Simulation-Based Training for New-Onset Symptomatic Rapid Atrial Fibrillation Among Prehospital Health Care Providers

Atrial fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia in clinical practice making proficient diagnosis and treatment vital to patient outcomes. The increased incidence of new-onset symptomatic rapid atrial fibrillation (NOSRAF) necessitates consistent provider training. This practice improvement project created a simulation-based training (SBT) program to prepare prehospital health care providers for responding to NOSRAF.

A pre/post design was used to evaluate SBT for prehospital health care providers during biannual training. A protocol-based checklist, knowledge questionnaire, and the Simulation Effectiveness Tool-Modified (SET-M) were used to collect data on protocol fidelity, knowledge, and simulation effectiveness, respectively.

SBT improved NOSRAF protocol compliance; however, the SET-M survey data revealed no change in provider confidence. Further studies focused on SBT for the prehospital health care provider are warranted.

SBT can improve prehospital health care provider preparedness in caring for patients with NOSRAF. Further studies are needed to better represent the influence of simulation-based learning in the prehospital health care provider population and to identify knowledge deterioration time frames.