Dr. Jill J Van Der Like

Educators are challenged to meet the needs of all student learning styles. Nursing educators care deeply about student perceptions, but understand the need for critical thinking in student learning outcomes. The need for mental health nursing care touches every nursing specialty. The concepts are abstract and complex, with many unknowns concerning the mind. The flipped classroom (FC) provides an opportunity for students to explore the concepts prior to classroom learning. This article describes an initiative to integrate an FC approach with a population of baccalaureate nursing students over the course of five semesters.

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a workshop designed to provide nurses (n = 6) with the means to improve their situation awareness. The nurses participated in a full-day workshop in which their situation awareness performance was measured before and after using the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique. Following the workshop, nurses demonstrated improvement in their perception of relevant cues, comprehension of what the combination of cues means, and projection of the patient's future status. The implications of situation awareness education for health-care professionals are discussed.

Healthcare professions face complex care environments with growing attention to the number of preventable hospital deaths. Interprofessional communication and teamwork are key elements in reducing medical errors, and are core competencies of interprofessional collaborative practice. Interprofessional education occurs when students from different disciplines learn together, and/or when faculty from one discipline instruct students in another. Simulated healthcare scenarios provide high-impact learning environments for students with many benefits. Simulation-interprofessional education has been used very little between Clinical Laboratory Sciences and BSN nursing students. The faculty from a growing university sought to improve student-learning outcomes through team-teaching and student role playing in simulation and science laboratories. Two IPE projects were undertaken. Both projects demonstrated increases in the cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains of learning.

The number one national patient safety goal of the Joint Commission (01.01.01) emphasizes improved patient identification (ID) practices.1 Simulated patient scenarios (SIM) provide students the opportunity to practice communication skills with "patients", including introducing themselves and requesting and verifying patient ID information. A patient simulation environment offers a safe, realistic practice setting for students to gain these skills.2 Hand Hygiene (HH) is a critical habit that must be learned and practiced before a student graduates and becomes a healthcare worker. In the United States alone, estimates are that 99,000 deaths are caused by healthcare acquired infections (HAIs) every year.3 The cost of treatment for these infections can range annually from $28.4 to 45 billion.3 Studies find that HH is critical for prevention of the transmission of HAIs and saving lives.4 However, this seemingly simple task is problematic, with reported HH compliance rates from 34-50% for healthcare workers.3' 4 A recent study has shown evidence that the World Health Organization's (WHO) 6-step process HH technique significantly reduces bacterial count more than the basic HH technique.5 Patient identification and handwashing are emphasized to Clinical Laboratory Science (CLS) students in the classroom. During the IPE SIM experience, the CLS students were to practice these skills: * Perform HH when entering the patient's environment, * Introduce themselves, explaining the purpose of their visit to withdraw blood specimen, * Conduct careful patient identification by verbal verification, and by comparing the patient ID armband for match with specimen request information; * Simulate blood specimen withdrawal at the patient bedside, * Safely leave the patient environment by again performing HH.

Literature is scarce regarding medical laboratorians and their attitudes about interprofessional interactions with other healthcare providers. We investigated learning and attitudes in a joint project that brought Clinical Laboratory Sciences (CLS) students and Nursing students together. The nursing and CLS faculty created a simulated post-partum patient who developed deep vein thrombosis followed by pulmonary embolism. The patient was heterozygous for the Factor V Leiden mutation. The simulations occurred in two venues. The patient scenario occurred at the student Nursing Skills and Simulation Learning Center “SIM lab” at the bedside of the patient experiencing symptoms of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, with the nursing students responding to the patient’s distress. CLS students collected blood from the patient during the crisis. The laboratory scenario occurred in the CLS teaching laboratory. CLS students performed real time PCR on the patient for the Factor V Leiden mutation, and instructed the nursing students how to interpret the results.
Learning gains were measured by survey after the 2 events. Retention of learning was measured 6 weeks after the second event took place. All students showed sustained learning about venous thromboembolism, its risk factors, and genetic mutations that predispose towards thrombophilia.
Students’ attitudes about interprofessional education and each other’s professions were surveyed before and after the experience. Students valued the experience and 87% of them responded that they are interested in pursuing more interprofessional education training opportunities.