Abstract TP69: Development of System-Wide Stroke-Specific Nursing Education for a Hospital System

Abstract

Background: Stroke nursing education is a requirement for Stroke Center designation. Providing eight hours of stroke-specific education to hundreds of nurses annually can be challenging for any medical institution. Purpose: The purpose of our project was to improve the quality of stroke nursing education for a seven-hospital system in New York City and to reach a larger audience of nurses by creating a learning environment that is strong, evidence-based, engaging and interactive. Methods: We recruited stroke neurologists, nurse practitioners, and experienced stroke nurses to provide lectures during monthly stroke education days. The eight-hour curriculum was designed by stroke program directors and stroke coordinators. Topics included acute stroke management, imaging, stroke complications, NIHSS review, post-stroke rehab, swallow screen, and stroke trivia. At least two presenters were recruited for each topic to ensure coverage. We used a zoom platform to provide stroke education. We assessed nurses’ performance during the educational process. Lectures were interactive with multiple-choice questions, polling and trivia, and allowed nurses to engage and ask questions. Educational days were offered monthly, and the schedule was posted for the entire year on the system-wide educational platform. We continued to improve the quality and delivery of the content based on nurses’ feedback. Results: Following initiation of this program, monthly education days via a virtual platform allowed us to reach a wider nursing audience across the system and to achieve consistency and quality of stroke nursing education. Over 2,000 nurses took part in our educational days during years of 2020-2023. Based on 1575 nurses’ reviews and feedback, the ability to interact with the presenters, ask questions, and the interactive content delivered by stroke experts were most appreciated.: Conclusions: Virtual technology and our nurse-oriented stroke curriculum allowed us to reach a wider audience of nurses. Assigning designated topic-specific partner-lecturers ensured coverage in case of an unexpected event. This method allows nurse educators to provide system-wide evidence-based interactive nursing education by specialty experts and emphasize material in real time.