A Multi-Institutional Simulation Boot Camp for Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Nurse Practitioners*

Objectives: Assess the effect of a simulation “boot camp” on the ability of pediatric nurse practitioners to identify and treat a low cardiac output state in postoperative patients with congenital heart disease. Additionally, assess the pediatric nurse practitioners’ confidence and satisfaction with simulation training. Design: Prospective pre/post interventional pilot study. Setting: University simulation center. Subjects: Thirty acute care pediatric nurse practitioners from 13 academic medical centers in North America. Interventions: We conducted an expert opinion survey to guide curriculum development. The curriculum included didactic sessions, case studies, and high-fidelity simulation, based on high-complexity cases, congenital heart disease benchmark procedures, and a mix of lesion-specific postoperative complications. To cover multiple, high-complexity cases, we implemented Rapid Cycle Deliberate Practice method of teaching for selected simulation scenarios using an expert driven checklist. Measurements and Main Results: Knowledge was assessed with a pre-/posttest format (maximum score, 100%). A paired-sample t test showed a statistically significant increase in the posttest scores (mean [SD], pre test, 36.8% [14.3%] vs post test, 56.0% [15.8%]; p
Source: Pediatric Critical Care Medicine - Category: Pediatrics Tags: Cardiac Intensive Care Source Type: research