Purdue University global has partnered with inciteVR’s Clinic Immersives NP Skills Labs to provide an online immersive acute care skills lab for students in the Adult Gerontology acute care Nurse practitioner (AGACNP) program to provide students with critical experiences in the acute care setting. The Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program previously
required students to travel to a Purdue Global location to complete an in-person skills intensive. Due to COVID-19 safety precautions and travel restrictions, the SON had to develop a skills lab offering to the AGACNP students. The students were tasked with completing multiple immersive labs including: endotracheal intubation, paracentesis, thoracentesis, suturing and central line placements. In 2020, two student cohorts have completed their clinical lab skills training in the Clinic Immersives NP Skills Labs Enterprise.
The Purdue University Global faculty and administration report that Clinic Immersives NP Skills Labs was especially beneficial in teaching the student different procedural steps in which they may not have the opportunity to practice in the in-patient setting. This platform can identify student mis-steps or mistakes in the process in a safe virtual laboratory environment. Of the 68 students that participated in the two cohorts of the inaugural acute care skills lab, all students were successful in connecting and accessing their skills lab via their Oculus Quest headset. In this experience, the completion rate of the lab was an astronomical 96.7%. When compared with their previous immersive products in the classroom, they observed that the overall student engagement, success and perseverance to connect to the acute care lab was remarkable.
With offices in Portugal and California, inciteVR specializes in the production of immersive learning products for higher education and professional training. Nurse Practitioner students that are studying online must arrange for and travel to the closest simulation center so that they can demonstrate clinical skills competencies. This requirement involves expensive, complicated logistics and student access to practice is limited. During these on-campus sessions, feedback regarding learner progress is anecdotal and subject to faculty availability. As a result, these traditional skills lab experiences are highly stressful and students that struggle with clinical skills can’t improve appreciably with the limited access to practice time and direct feedback from the faculty. Nurse Practitioner students use the Clinic Immersives NP Skills Labs Enterprise and their Oculus Quest to practice and demonstrate clinical skills competencies “anytime, anywhere”. No travel is required, availability of practice is nearly unlimited, analytics of learning outcomes provide insight for every aspect of clinical skills labs, learner performance, and learner and class skills gaps. Additionally, research has shown that students ‘learn deeper and retain skills longer’ through immersive learning experiences.
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