The Patient Emergency Lab: Staff to Staff Professional Growth Experiences
Handout (559.6 kB)
Patient Emergency debriefings reveal problems of chaos and lack of role enactment. MICU Nurses Clinical Ladder I observed quality improvement opportunities in the first 3 minutes of a patient emergency. Their fresh eyes and voice assisted in the emergence of an education and practice laboratory.
Relevance/Significance:
The development of a Patient Emergency Lab with three dimensions addresses direct patient care and clinical outcomes: 1 Hour Simulation Class, 4 Hour Scheduled Shift Partnering, and 5 to 7 Minute In-Situ Emergencies. The MICU Clinical Level 1 Nurses serve as the Faculty to non-Intensive Care Nurses with a “second to second” demonstration of positions occupied and roles enacted. The non-ICU Nurse complete assessments of their knowledge and behavior intentions with “pre and post” surveys.
Strategy and Implementation:
The MICU Nurses responded to 57% of 389 Code Blues and 80% of 549 Rapid Responses. Five MICU Clinical Nurses, Level 1 with less than two years of experience articulated their ability to innovatively “share”, “teach” and “coach” non-Intensive Care Nurses how to make decisions about patients during emergencies. The MICU Nurses address Critical Thinking and bring the thinking to the level of Critical Action and Critical Language. The MICU Nurses use their “fresh eye observations” to focus on specific evidence based practices in clinical emergencies. Through simulating team member positions/definitions and attitudes/behavior intentions, structure and culture innovations may enhance the care provided by the nurse and benefit the patient outcomes.
Evaluation:
The Patient Emergency Lab Nurse Learner completes a “pre and post” survey and evaluation for “The Patient Emergency” class objectives which include: empowerment, confidence during a patient emergency; enacting roles, and comfort with emergency equipment. Using Likert Scales, 134 of 145 statements reveal improvement in the 5 dimensions with zero dimension statements declining.
Implications for Practice:
Staff to Staff professional growth experiences using “classes/7simulation”, “scheduled shift partnering”, and In-Situ Patient Emergencies provided evidence that best practices and research can be brought to the “moment-to-moment” front line nurses as they make decision about patient's lives.