Incorporating Technology into Advanced Health Assessment Through the use of a Digital Standardized Patient

Incorporating Technology into Advanced Health Assessment Through the use of a Digital Standardized Patient

Grant:
Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching
Academic Year:
2012 - 2013 (June 1, 2012 through May 31, 2013)
Funding Requested:
$10,000.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
nbouche
aballard
milopa
Overview of the Project:
The ultimate goal of this project is to enhance the advanced health assessment skills of nurse practitioner students using innovative simulated patient technology. Tina, the digital standardized patient allows students to practice communication, advanced assessment, diagnostic reasoning, clinical decision-making, and basic procedural skills on complicated patients that better mimic real-world experience. The digital standardized patient allows the faculty to vary the complexity of information to range from common abnormal findings to rare abnormal anomalies. Additionally, the encounters with Tina facilitates students in developing diagnostic reasoning skills over the term by engaging students in a question and answer session focused on clinical assessment problem-solving and diagnostic reasoning. The digital standardized patient also allows the student time for self-reflection about the interaction. The digital standardized patient program tracks each individual student's progress throughout the term. Additionally, the class as a whole is tracked to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the class. These tracking methods will aid faculty in modifying the classroom and laboratory content to help facilitate students learning. Additionally, the tracking methods can be utilized to facilitate small group discussion during the small group clinical time.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:

The purpose of this project was to develop the advanced health assessment skills of nurse practitioner students, examine student self-efficacy in competencies of advanced health assessment, and evaluate student comfort with progression to real world clinical experiences after the use of a digital standardized patient.

Project Achievements:

After the DSP experience, almost all (92%) students stated that they were confident in their ability to take a complete health history, perform physical exam (84%), and identify the difference between normal and abnormal findings (76%). Almost two thirds (63%) felt better prepared to interview a live patient, but 16% stated that they were not at all confident in their ability to perform a complete physical exam on a live patient. Only 54% of students felt that the DSP help to synthesize data and develop differential diagnoses. Nearly half of the students (41%) did not feel that the digital patient responses were authentic and 43% stated thta the digital patient did not realistically simulate a live patient. Individual narrative responses revealed that students felt that the health history module was the most valuable aspect of the digital standardized patient. Through the funds of the Whitaker I, we were able to identify that digital patient technology offered benefits to advanced health assessment students, but they still felt unprepared to interact with a live patient. The use of this technology has opened up conversation and potential collaboration between the School of Nursing and the Medical School/UMHS/Standardized Patient Program to explore additional innovations to provide the students with the experiences needed to better prepare them to provide exceptional care to live patients upon graduation.

Continuation:
The project is continuing beyond the grant period. All sections now utilize the DSP in Advanced Health Assessment. The fee that the grant supported is now covered as a book fee for students. Furthermore, due to some faculty exposure to the DSP, and the ability of the students to have continued access to the DSP post-course, the DSP has been incorporated into some clinical courses when the topics are relevant to the tools within the DSP.
Dissemination:
We were able to present our findings and the project activities in several venues. Primarily, we shared our findings with the UMSN which has resulted in the DSP being incorporated into all sections of Advanced Health Assessment. Secondly, we presented at a national conference geared toward NP educators (NONPF, April 2014) where we were able to discuss and collaborate with other colleges. Third, we were able to share our findings with all educators who are using the DSP through a national webinar. Finally, a manuscript is in preparation with anticipated submission in October 2014.
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