Pediatric Critical Care Simulation Curriculum: Training Nurse Practitioners to Lead in the Management of Critically Ill Children.

Abstract

Acute care pediatric nurse practitioners have become frontline providers in the critical care environment and are expected to provide leadership in acutely critical situations. We describe a 2-day, high-fidelity, simulation-based curriculum focused on training the pediatric nurse practitioners for leadership in critical care scenarios. This prospective pre-post interventional study used simulation-based pedagogy. Knowledge tests, time-to-task, and a follow-up survey were used to determine the effectiveness of the training. Participants (n = 23) improved their knowledge scores by 27% (pretest: 35.2% [standard deviation = 12.1%]; posttest: 62.2% [standard deviation = 13.8%], p < .001). In addition, time-to-task for resuscitation variables improved significantly. At 3 months, 100% of the participants who responded either agreed (15.4%) or strongly agreed (84.6%) that the boot camp prepared them to lead in a critical emergency. Simulation-based training is an effective strategy for educating critical care pediatric nurse practitioners and improves their ability to manage pediatric emergencies rapidly, which can be lifesaving.