Nursing Education in a Pandemic

Creating a Pandemic Plan

Labouré College's Dean of Nursing, Karen Manning, MSN, RN, started planning early. “In February, I started working on the ‘COVID Plan.’ By March, I was thinking about how to continue clinical for Spring. Then we needed to determine how we were going to keep the Summer semester while delivering the same level of skill training and knowledge we typically provide. That’s how virtual reality came about.”

By April, Manning had identified UbiSim, a virtual reality training program for nursing, to supplement the students’ high-fidelity simulation lab experience on campus.

“I had to come up with something that would continue to use the students’ clinical thinking skills, did not require an intensive amount of cleaning between uses, and would maintain all social distancing and infection control guidelines. There are a lot of video tools available for students, but I wanted something that would feel like walking into a patient’s room – something that would require communication, interactions, and skills.”

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