Victoria Parker

Using Remote Access Laboratories in nursing education

Remote Access Laboratory (RAL) based learning activities are commonplace in engineering faculties; in other disciplines such activities are not widely used. Practicing safe-installations of intravenous pump driver setups and related clinical reasoning skills are important components for the training of nurses. The aim of this research project is to develop and trial remote access technologies that enable nursing students to test their knowledge, skills, and clinical reasoning with intravenous infusion pump drivers. This has been possible by extending the concept of RAL from a physical and tangible experiment, to more conceptual experimentation in any form conducted remotely. In such a context clinical reasoning becomes possible. This paper discusses a prototype that has been build through collaboration betweens the Faculty of Engineering and Surveying and the Department of Nursing and Midwifery. An initial evaluation with a group of nursing students has been completed to assess if such activities can assist with the training of student nurses. Previous work has identified the need to scaffold learning activities that rely on RAL technology; the key conclusion in this paper is that in the context of nursing this have to be taken a step further. RAL activities here require contextualisation to become an effective learning tool.

Improving clinical practice outcomes for nurses with an interactive emulator

Historically, nursing students have shown great difficulty in mastering equipment during clinical practice sessions. A typical example is the Intravenous (IV) pump infusion driver. Traditional training methods have relied upon on-campus practical group training sessions. Recent work in this area has demonstrated that Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) can be employed to enhance nursing education by providing access to an IV pump driver learning activity. The prototype closely mimicked the interface and audible feedback of a commonly used IV pump driver; and controlled a peristaltic pump to deliver the prescribed rates and volumes. This project takes this approach a step further and investigates a completely emulated interface in the same RAL environment. The aim is to target five problem areas that were previously identified. These include the screen navigation and data entry of the IV pump driver; and the correct calculation and entry of medication volumes and rates from a standard fluid chart. To address these issues the learning environment was modified to include a guided learning mode, integrated scaffolding resources and facility of self-assessment. This paper discusses implementation and results of a pilot study to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach. Initial results are promising and show a distinct improvement in the practical capability of those students who participated in the trial.