Impact of Nurse Practitioners and Nursing Education on COVID-19 Pandemics: Innovative Strategies of Authentic Technology-Integrated Clinical Simulation

Abstract

Taiwan Nurses Association and the International Council of Nurses recognize nurse practitioners (NPs) as advanced-practice nurses. A total of 11,266 registered nurses held NP certificates in April 2021 in Taiwan (Tsay, 2021). While international organizations recognize NPs with graduate degrees, over 85% of NPs in Taiwan hold a bachelor degree only. Tsay and Wang (2007) emphasized that NP education in Taiwan should be in step with international trends. Therefore, nursing schools must recruit PhD faculty who hold NP certificates. In addition, complicated and simulation-based learning procedures and teaching plans must be incorporated into the graduate curriculum and clinical practicum to promote the clinical reasoning competences and advanced nursing capabilities of NPs in light of professional training, qualifying examinations, and occupational practice. With the evolution of virtual technology, the strategies for teaching core competences in nursing education have shifted from traditional classroom lectures to online format simulation. Recently, scholars have begun using authentic technology-enhanced clinical simulation to develop and integrate nursing competence to reconceptualize the gap between theory and practice (Weeks et al., 2019). It is increasingly important to teach patient safety, clinical reasoning, and decision-making skills to nursing students using the assistive methods of clinical simulation technology (Aebersold, 2016; Johnsen et al., 2016). Since 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a global impact. In May 2021, clinical practice settings and university campuses in Taiwan were closed following the announcement of a nationwide, level-3 epidemic alert. The Ministry of Education and Taiwan Nurses Association approved the replacement of up to 50% of clinical practicum hours with alternative learning activities. Therefore, faculties require innovative strategies to teach requisite skills and deliver clinical practica online. The faculty members of California State University use virtual clinical education and standardized patient-based telehealth simulations (Shea & Rovera, 2021). In Taiwan, there is a lack of studies in the literature examining the effect of replacing 50% of traditional face-to-face clinical activities with educational alternatives. Prior survey results have demonstrated the efficacy of transitioning to virtual clinical experiences in an online environment for undergraduate and graduate students (Fogg et al., 2020). Moreover, a systematic review provided evidence that virtual simulations support learning outcomes (Foronda et al., 2020). To promote clinical-reasoning competence in graduate students with NP certificates and prepare alternative, virtual-based teaching plans to meet the remaining clinical hours required of students, Fooyin University's School of Nursing has recently established the multi-functional iNursing-Innovative Learning Center. The hardware devices provide interactive virtual patients with character creator 3D, augmented realty (AR) hospital, operating room, intensive care unit, and virtual reality (VR) simulation plans for different nursing divisions as well as editors of electronic book and AR/VR teaching plans. The simulation plans include commercial products and self-design produced by well-trained faculty members. A group of seeding faculty members supported by the Ministry of Education's Higher Education Sprout Project and university funding was tapped to develop a large number of virtual simulation plans. In addition, when developing virtual simulation, it is necessary to follow teaching team discussion and learning objective setting procedures, pre-brief teachers and students, enact plans, conduct debriefing, and collect and evaluate data to explore the learning and teaching process and outcomes (Verkuyl et al., 2021). The nursing clinical practicum continues to be impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In a further study, nursing academic faculty cooperated with clinical preceptors to develop and design education strategies using authentic technology-integrated clinical simulations to promote advanced and comprehensive care competences in nurse practitioners.