January 20 - Academic, Foundation, and Corporate

I am so excited. Today I’d like to talk about the work the NLN is doing with our growing roster of academic, foundation, and corporate partners including the Betty Moore Foundation, Chamberlain College of Nursing, Excelsior College, Galen College, Johnson & Johnson, Laerdal Medical, and Wolters Kluwer. With these partners and you, our amazing nurse educator members, the NLN is producing an array of evidence-based products and services to support you in your work – including some that are not quite ready but on the horizon.

I will start with an update of A2P, Accelerating to Practice, currently in development with Laerdal Medical and Wolters Kluwer and the signature program of our Center for Academic and Clinical Transition. A2P will improve the preparedness of new nurses as they enter practice by supporting nurse educators, managers, and preceptors in their efforts to provide high quality orientation programs. Its first iteration, which involves the development of multiple learning strategies, including online case studies and tutorials, virtual simulations, interactive video role-playing exercises, and hands-on simulation workshops, is being piloted by practice partners from a wide variety of hospitals (large, small, and in-between) in 11 states across the United States.

I am pleased to introduce you to Molly Kellgren, MSN, RN, CNE, CHSE, a former faculty member at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota, who has joined us as A2P manager. Molly is a simulation expert and her master’s work focused on new-nurse transition. Now here is a strange question: What is it about Minnesota and simulation? Why do they go so well together? You’ll understand why I ask when I re-introduce you to former NLN scholar-in-residence Minnesotan Susan Gross Forneris, PhD, RN, CNE, CHSE-A. Thanks to funding from Excelsior College, we are fortunate to have Sue on staff as NLN/Excelsior Deputy Director of the NLN Center for Innovation in Simulation and Technology, which offers a number of products and services: SIRC, vSim, and SESN.

• Simulation Education Solutions for Nursing (SESN, our newest endeavor, is grounded in NLN expertise in simulation and debriefing, INACSL Standards of Best Practices, and Standards developed by the Society for Simulation in Health Care. Specifically, SESN supports schools of nursing through an assessment of current practice, recommendations for the implementation of curriculum integration and faculty preparedness, and on-site workshops to practice simulation with your faculty and staff in your labs, using your resources. Offered by Laerdal Medical, with workshops developed by the NLN, SESN is designed to help schools of nursing enhance their curricula to respond to results of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing landmark study and recently published simulation guidelines.
• Though you already know a lot about the NLN SIRC (Simulation Innovation Resource Center), I want call your attention to the fact that we have revised the popular SIRC courses: two outdated courses have been retired, revisions on 10 courses are complete, and one brand new course has been developed. You need to wait a bit – updated and new courses will launch on February 8. Look for the announcement.
• And then there is vSim for Nursing, the result of a collaboration between the NLN, Laerdal Medical, and Wolters Kluwer. Each vSim product (med-surg, gerontology, maternity and pediatrics, fundamentals, and pharmacology) features 10 virtual patient simulation scenarios that allow students to access curriculum resources and practice patient-centered care for a variety of case studies that simulate real nursing scenarios. vSim for Nursing includes integrated curriculum resources, pre- and post-simulation quizzes, and guided reflection questions. To become familiar with the program’s basic functionality and features, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial offer. As you can imagine, we are very proud of this collection of innovative products.

Before I close I want to say a few words about a news story you may have missed. Three students from Columbia University and Barnard College were killed recently in Honduras when their bus crashed while taking them to the airport after a volunteer mission. The victims were a junior, a sophomore, and a student and nurse practitioner at Columbia University Medical Center. Colleagues, we’re saddened by this tragedy and the loss of life and serious injury involving the passengers of the bus. It always feels even more personal when we know the tragedy touched a school in the US. We send our warm thoughts and prayers to the university and the families.