Innovation
Led and managed a team of University of Stirling academics as part of a consortia approach to develop an Immersive Virtual Reality resource to address the Failure to Rescue agenda across the UK NHS. Consortia included Skills2Learn (IVR developer), Cengage publishing and countrywide medical (e-learning provider). Total cost of the project (£120,000).
The course has 6 sections of e-learning followed by 3 immersive reality scenarios that assess student’s ability to recognise early signs of patient deterioration. The course is fully interactive and is designed to sit on all types of university/NHS virtual learning enviroments. The project took over 16 months to develop and is now being marketed by Cengage publishing.
What prompted innovation?
A large amount of empirical research suggested that large numbers of level one type patients were becoming unwell and going into shock. However according to patient documentation there were early signs of this developing that had not been recognised by nursing staff.
What makes innovation different?
The content of the course is exactly what the student/qualified nurse or paramedic need to know in relation to the recognition of life threatening physiological change and looks at how track and trigger systems can maximise positive patient outcome.
Changes in practice
It’s more about the higher education sector responding to system changes in clinical practice and not taking an ostrich approach.
I will be leading the evaluation of the course over the next 12 months and would suggest that due to the way the course has been put together (written by practitioners for practitioners) and its usage of virtual reality technology it will give students the opportunity to engage with contemporary content at the end of their finger tips, either in the workplace of from home. The vision was to bypass bricks and mortar and create something that students could access easily and quickly.
Impact
- During the development stages of the project we took opinion from a user reference group of student/qualified nurses and paramedics who all evaluated this positively and urged for its quick inclusion into the NHS in Scotland.
- We have also had positive results from experts/colleagues at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, USA.
Dissemination
- All academic members of the school are very much aware of this programme and our current third year undergraduate nurses will get full access to the course in Ocotber 2013.
- I’m also currently developing the course into a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) format in order to enagage with the global educational market.