Change Over Time in Ratings of New Nurses on the Appraisal of Nursing Practice

Addressing the Lack of Professional Values and Behaviors among New Nurses

Professionalism and safety in patient care are concepts nurses are expected to exhibit in practice. High fidelity simulation was explored to assist in teaching students the behaviors needed to succeed in nursing. Nursing leaders identified areas in which graduates struggle, including critical thinking, skills acquisition, time management, role responsibilities, delegation, and effective communication. The project's purpose was to analyze students' perceptions regarding professional nursing values, identify gaps in knowledge concerning professional behavior, and determine perception change of professional values. A pretest post-test simulation intervention was chosen. Improvement in communication and autonomy was noted with statistically significant findings.

Quantifying and Remediating the New Graduate Nurse Resident Academic-Practice Gap Using Online Patient Simulation

BACKGROUND

There is an ever-widening academic-practice gap. Less than one third of new graduates demonstrate entry-level competencies required for practice. Hospitals expend many resources to create nurse residency programs to remediate this gap. Online interactive case simulation is effective to increase competencies and decrease the length of orientation and rate of turnover. The aims of this pilot research study were to quantify the academic-practice gap and to strengthen areas of development for competent and safe clinical practice through use of an online patient simulation program.

METHOD

A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study using an online patient simulation program was implemented in a convenience sample of nurse residents over 16 months.

RESULTS

Twenty-nine residents completed more than 3,400 patient simulations. Improvement in pretest and posttest metrics included 100% of nurse residents committing a sentinel error event decreased to 20.7%, 766 medication errors decreased to 160, and failed-to-rescue an average of 81% of the time decreased to 23%.

CONCLUSION

Interactive online patient simulation programs provide a powerful learning methodology in which learners improve patient safety and reduce failures to rescue. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2021;52(5):240-247.].