Is There a Need for Technology Equipment to Enhance Learning in a Culturally Diverse Nursing Student Population?

The healthcare delivery system and higher education have expressed a great concern regarding patient safety, cultural competence and the quality of patient care in our diverse population. Nehring (2008) identified the following patient care needs, patient safety and quality of care, nursing faculty shortage, increased technology to deliver healthcare, patient acuity, decreased hospital stay, decreased availability of clinical sites, decrease funding for orientation, and introduction of high complicated technology with which to deliver health care. Patient care needs require that the nursing educators seek creative ways to resolve these challenges and develop new and better nursing practices. The use of simulation for hands on practice, nursing skill competency, and critical thinking skills will increase patient safety outcomes and improve student’s cultural competence.

 

Simulation technology such as high fidelity simulation, Personal Response System and Virtual soft ware can be use to address these concerns and others such as improving student patient communication and communication with the healthcare team. Students can become familiar with other cultures and biases in a non threatening environment. Videotaping and role playing of diverse cultural patients during a simulation activity is an excellent tool for the faculty to provide feedback to the student. Nursing students in a diverse cultural needs help in the acculturation process and understanding that healing goes hand in hand with cultural beliefs and life styles.

 

Human Patient Simulators has been identified as an effective teaching strategy in many areas of the health care field (Bearnson & Walker, 2005; Nehring & Lashley, 2004). Simulation has been beneficial to science, healthcare field and the educational arena. The purpose of simulation is “to replicate some or nearly all the essentials aspects of the clinical situation so that the situation may become readily understood and managed when it occurs for real in clinical practice” (Morton, 1995, p.76). Advances in technology both in the educational and healthcare settings provide many opportunities to enhance the learning of the nursing student. The use of high fidelity patient simulation in nursing education has been described for specific fields of practice, including critical care (Rauen, 2004), community health (Brady, Molzen, Graham, & O’Neill, 2006), pediatrics (Lambonton,2008), nurse anesthesia (Fletcher, 1998, O’Donnell, J., Dixon, B., & Palmer, L., (1998). Rauen (2004) emphasized this technology’s; ability to enhance critical learning skills in nursing students through the use of high-fidelity patient simulation. Preparing and ensuring the competence of novice student nurses in code management, critical thinking, decrease stress and anxiety will result in patient safety outcomes, pain and suffering and decreased health costs.

 

During the last three years I have provided multiply training workshops to the nursing faculty and the surrounding community. The faculty evaluation reflected the need for simulation activities to supplement the problem with decreased clinical sites, to improve student, patient and healthcare communication interaction. Simulation equipment in a diverse culture is an excellent tool for the future of nursing education.