News — A Minnesota academic medical center incorporated immersive virtual reality (IVR) into its nurse residency program, demonstrating how the technology can do more than enhance the learning experience: It can also be a useful tool for feedback and assessment of clinical competencies during new nurses’ transition to clinical practice.
M Health Fairview in Minneapolis served as the pilot site for a newly developed IVR program created through a collaboration between the University of Minnesota School of Nursing and Oxford Medical Simulation (OMS) as a way to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and clinical practice. In addition to clinical scenarios, assessment analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) tools are integrated within the VR platform.
IVR goes beyond traditional simulations to transport users into a 3-dimensional digital environment, using headsets and hand controls to provide a personal experience and a sense of psychological presence.
“y” details how the program used Meta Oculus Quest 2 devices and two simulations from OMS to supplement onboarding for nurses in multiple clinical departments. Two widely used competency frameworks – the Creighton Competency Evaluation Instrument and the American Association of Colleges of Nurses Essentials – are embedded into the OMS platform, allowing for individual and aggregate analysis of performance during each simulation. The study is published in the Technology Today section of .
Co-author Cynthia Sherraden Bradley, PhD, RN, CNE, CHSE, ANEF, is assistant professor and director of simulation at the nursing school.
“A smooth transition to clinical practice for new nurses is key for both patient safety and staff retention, and immersive virtual reality can provide a safe space for new nurses to refine their skills,” she said. “In addition, the AI-driven system has the potential to help nurse educators assess nursing competencies and provide objective feedback to new nurses.”
Twenty-seven newly licensed registered nurses who were hired between August and October 2023 participated in the IVR session during their nurse residency program. They represented several clinical departments, predominantly inpatient care settings.
The session began with a briefing that included learning objectives and an orientation to the Meta Oculus Quest 2 headset and hand controls and to the OMS simulation platform.
The first scenario focused on the care of a patient admitted to an adult medical-surgical inpatient unit with pyelonephritis, a complication of a urinary tract infection that causes inflammation of the kidneys. In the second scenario, participants continued caring for the now-stable patient from the initial scenario and added a second patient who was a direct admit from a provider’s office experiencing high blood glucose levels due to a lack of funds for insulin.
Immediately following each session, participants were divided into two groups and engaged in a 40-minute guided reflective debriefing led by the instructors.
For the study, the researchers analyzed the aggregate data within the OMS dashboard, through the lens of each of the two competency frameworks. The AI-driven nature of the analytics enables quick assessment of an individual’s actions and decisions during a scenario, demonstrating the potential for using IVR to assess nurse competencies.
A grant from the American Nurse Foundation funded the study.
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