Improving clinical practice outcomes for nurses with an interactive emulator

Historically, nursing students have shown great difficulty in mastering equipment during clinical practice sessions. A typical example is the Intravenous (IV) pump infusion driver. Traditional training methods have relied upon on-campus practical group training sessions. Recent work in this area has demonstrated that Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) can be employed to enhance nursing education by providing access to an IV pump driver learning activity. The prototype closely mimicked the interface and audible feedback of a commonly used IV pump driver; and controlled a peristaltic pump to deliver the prescribed rates and volumes. This project takes this approach a step further and investigates a completely emulated interface in the same RAL environment. The aim is to target five problem areas that were previously identified. These include the screen navigation and data entry of the IV pump driver; and the correct calculation and entry of medication volumes and rates from a standard fluid chart. To address these issues the learning environment was modified to include a guided learning mode, integrated scaffolding resources and facility of self-assessment. This paper discusses implementation and results of a pilot study to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach. Initial results are promising and show a distinct improvement in the practical capability of those students who participated in the trial.