Nursing School advances training with new simulation technology

BY MATT LARDIE  

Imagine a nurse putting on a virtual reality (VR) headset to get inside the mind of an elderly patient with early-onset dementia. Or another nurse diagnosing a patient who shows up not in person, but remotely as a hologram.

These aren’t scenes from an episode of Star Trek—they’re part of the regular curriculum in Duke’s School of Nursing’s Center for Nursing Discovery (CND). Here, Nikki Petsas Blodgett and her team are using the very latest in simulation technology to train new nurses for today and tomorrow’s healthcare needs.

As Duke continues to expand MADE FOR THIS, its most ambitious campaign in its history, developing and using the latest innovations to train nurses and bring world-class nursing care to patients is more important than ever.

The VR technology being deployed at Duke allows nursing students to experience the world through the eyes and ears of patients to better understand what life may be like for them. For example, understanding the experience of an elderly patient attending a checkup while depending on the support of their family.

Nursing student Deborah Osei assisted Blodgett and the CND staff in testing these VR scenarios.

“Many of the emotions the VR experience evoked were those that the patients were feeling. Whether it was frustration because I couldn’t pick something up, sadness because I was left out of my care, or even fear because I wasn’t aware of what was happening, the VR gave me a glimpse of what patients might experience regarding their care.” –Deborah Osei, pre-licensure nursing student

Another tool utilized by the CND is a hologram machine. Like the VR headsets, this system is designed to allow students to experience real-life situations. The difference here is that students are interacting with a full-scale patient right in front of them.

The CND team worked with Senior Community Care of North Carolina, a Medicare and Medicaid funded PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) provider, to design scenarios that capture common types of patients and health care visits. They then teamed up with Durham-based educational consultants Theater Delta to cast actors who act out the scenarios.

In the holographic scenarios, students interact with a patient in the hologram portal. They can ask questions of the patient while also observing the full person, considering signs like a patient’s body language, stance, and more. For example, the student may ask questions regarding the patient’s mobility while also observing that the patient has shaky hands or seems to be favoring one leg over the other.

This state-of-the-art approach to nursing education provides students with what Blodgett calls real-life training prior to going out into a clinical setting.

Both the virtual reality and the holographic simulation training are funded by a Health Resources & Service Administration grant. The program, called NUrses Advancing Geriatric Excellence through SIMulation (NU-AGE-SIM), aims to enhance nurse education and strengthen the nursing workforce by increasing training opportunities for nursing students in the care of medically underserved older adults facing behavioral and mental health challenges.

These simulation-based technologies allow the School of Nursing to address the unique health challenges faced by older adults while increasing nursing students’ readiness to practice upon graduation.