(13) Collaboration and Teamwork: An Immersive Simulation Experience for Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Students

Abstract: Acute care pediatric nurse practitioners (ACPNP) medically manage patients experiencing a wide array of acute and critical conditions. There are often limited opportunities for these providers to be exposed to all potential clinical scenarios that will help prepare them as leaders in the clinical setting. To prepare ACPNP students for clinical practice, we developed a simulation in which students must collaboratively care for critically ill children.
The ACPNP faculty and the simulation coordinator met to collaboratively develop a simulation experience that would present the students with an opportunity to care for a patient in the pediatric intensive care unit and a patient in the pediatric emergency department. The students worked collaboratively in groups of three to four to assess, diagnose, and manage the critically ill child. The critical care scenarios allowed the learners to perform ventilator management and endotracheal intubation, whereas the emergency department scenarios allowed learners to manage patients experiencing status epilepticus and septic shock. A debriefing session with a simulation facilitator and course faculty content experts was held upon completion.
A post-simulation survey was used to assess learner outcomes. This survey identified positive results from participants. Forty-two learners participated in the simulation, and 31 returned evaluations. Survey responses revealed that 77.42% of the learners “strongly agreed,” and 22.58% “agreed” that they feel more prepared to respond to changes in a patient’s condition. Therefore, simulation is beneficial in preparing ACPNP students for clinical practice.