Innovation
The technology of Augmented Reality is used to assess and enhance student nurses’ emotional responses to patients during the introduction of simulated scenarios. Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that overlays computer generated imagery (CGI) or video over the live world via in this case a tablet computer. Evaluation to date has shown that students interact with manikins more when using AR, using different speech patterns when addressing the patient, touching the patient in a reassuring way and remembering more details when making judgements about patients’ needs.
What prompted innovation?
Whilst simulation is extremely useful in healthcare education ensuring engagement and immersion in the activity is essential to maximise the learning opportunities.
Enabling engagement and immersion early in the simulation is a challenge; students often need time to ‘warm up’ and overcome the fact they are rehearsing skills on a manikin. Using Augmented Reality leads to students engaging in the experience more quickly. It also encourages deeper immersion allowing facilitators to observe behaviours which are frequently only seen in a practice setting which enriches the learning experience and enables feedback based on professional behaviour to given.
What makes innovation different?
The use of Augmented reality in health care scenarios is at the time unique as discussed at the National Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare (ASPi H) 2012 where the team were awarded the best presentation. While there have been a number of applications of augmented reality to place abdominal organs (Sherstyuk et al 2008) or full CGI overlays with AR interactivity (Kotranza & Lok 2008) literature reviews and professional knowledge indicate this technology has not been used it to address topical nursing agendas and patient interaction over multiple scenarios.
Changes in practice
- This technology is now used in teaching practice in two disciplines of healthcare (Nursing & Physiotherapy) within Sheffield Hallam University. Therefore there has been a change in education practice when introducing simulated patient scenarios to using this technology.
- As the technology affords academic staff to observe student responses to patient interactions and therefore provide feedback it is envisaged that there is a potential change in clinical practice by the students implementing the feedback into their clinical practice.
Impact
- Observational feedback from a pilot study
- Student feedback
- We also currently have a research project in progress comparing the use of AR with traditional simulated learning approaches.
Dissemination
- This innovation has been published as a news feature in the Nursing Standard.
- This innovation has also been presented at ASIPH where the authors won a best innovation award.
- Due to the above the innovations abstract has been published in the Journal for the Society of Simulation in Healthcare June 2013
- There is an article currently in press for the Nursing Standard
- The work is being presented at Human Patient Simulation Network (HPSN) world conference in July 2013 in San Francisco