NURS FPX 6112 Assessment 3 Comparison of Types of Simulation Technology

Comparison of Types of Simulation Technology

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Capella University

FPX 6112

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Submission Date

An undergraduate BSN program provides Adult Health Nursing and Clinical Decision-Making courses that can assist students in enhancing their clinical competence. Senior nursing students and new registered nurses should acquire the knowledge of how to treat patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Peripheral neuropathy and vascular disease are some of the conditions that complicate the treatment of T2DM. Organized learning experience enables students to make decisions, as well as comprehend cases superiorly.

The use of theories can be done using simulation without the risk of harming the health of patients. It has been discovered that structured simulation is beneficial in preparing students to work in the clinic (Ravi et al., 2022). Two of the most frequently used educational methods are virtual simulation, such as the Evan Wright case of Sentinel U, and high-fidelity manikins, such as the Laerdal SimMan. The comparison reveals that the Sentinel U Evan Wright case is concerned with the care of chronic illness in comparison to the high-fidelity manikins like Laerdal SimMan, which provide practical experience in skills.

Simulation Technologies

Virtual Simulation, similar to Sentinel U, Evan Wright places the students under a virtual environment where they venture and solve chronic cases, such as Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus as a team. The simulator demonstrates to learners how to use physical examinations, medications, and the analysis of body functions to make decisions (Moztarzadeh et al., 2023). It pays attention to critical thinking because it presents patient cases, in which the result is determined by the action of the user.

Users are challenged to learn, contemplate on their actions, and associate theoretical concepts with their clinical opinions. Consequently, it is good in the development of higher-order skills, sound judgment when dealing with healthcare, and the confidence to handle chronic diseases. The Evan Wright scenario is a situation where the students are taking care of a patient with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and leg pain as complications, and are encouraged to think critically by making decisions about assessment, medication management, and disease process interpretation.

The simulation provides immediate feedback and enables practice in a flexible and low-resource environment. Sentinel U facilitates asynchronous and scalable learning and promotes critical thinking, documentation, and clinical reasoning-based decision-making, which makes it especially affordable and easy to use in large groups of students.

Alternatively, training with a Laerdal SimMan 3G manikin implies that the students will be able to train on the equipment that reacts as it would in a medical emergency. They have palpable pulses, light-responsive eyes, a dynamic chest, voice-reactive, and flexible vital signs to allow student check and treat patients in real time (Moztarzadeh et al., 2023). They may be employed in enhancing such skills as listening with the help of a stethoscope, IV initiation, CPR, and emergency management.

The simulations that are logically demanding have learners thinking rapidly in unison, with the clinical urgency of the real world being introduced into the room. Although more costly and resource-intensive, SimMan provides more practical experience of psychomotor skills and realistic patient interactions as well as team-based dynamics that are a reflection of the real bedside care.

Sentinel U can be accessed online, as a result of which it is simpler to reach a bigger population as compared to using high-fidelity manikins, as it will be necessary to learn through an instructor. Sentinel U teaches students a lot of various scenarios and builds mental abilities, whereas working with manikins will allow them to acquire practical skills and interact with real-life body simulations.

Sentinel U is friendly and can be accommodated in most of the programs, whereas high-fidelity manikins come at a big cost in terms of equipment, space and maintenance (Baily, 2020). Within the framework of Adult Health and Clinical Decision-Making course, Sentinel U can be more efficient and effective because it is easy to implement, does not need much technical support, is portable, and correlates directly with the outcomes of the assessment-oriented learning.

Educational Outcomes

The Sentinel U simulation tool and the manikins have various roles in influencing the education outcomes. Due to its repetition and immediate feedback, Evan Wright’s simulation gives you more memory of the information. This type of learning focuses on the key medical concepts and makes the patients recall them in the long-term, primarily in case of chronic diseases. It is easy to reinforce knowledge of theory since such materials are the same and may be studied anywhere as long as one has an internet connection (Hippalgaonkar et al., 2023).

High-fidelity practice is more effective in learning in another sense, as working with the manikin facilitates memory. Such activities as IV insertion and auscultation help the students make the connections between learning and actual actions guided by their teachers. Using the Evan Wright simulation, students will be able to train as they can learn to estimate refills and skin changes via virtual work. It fails to provide you with the experience that will make you master the techniques properly. Due to high-fidelity manikins, students would be able to conduct the entire examination and familiarize themselves with the actual skills required in medical practice.

The two methods also differ in the metrics used to measure the learning outcomes. Sentinel U is based on embedded performance feedback, decision history, and learner survey. Teachers will be able to evaluate their results based on the scores on quizzes, self-reflection, and completion analytics. In the case of SimMan, checklists, rubrics, standardized evaluation forms, and peer or faculty observation are typically used by educators to assess the performance of the technical skills and teamwork (Hippalgaonkar et al., 2023).

No simulation is particularly effective at showing difficult cases of chronic care, which makes the Evan Wright simulation especially useful to demonstrate to students why they should listen to the important cases and apply their pharmacologic knowledge and patient progress estimation. This makes the learners have good reasoning skills, and they learn to think long-term. High-fidelity manikins enable students to respond to changes quickly in emergency or critical situations, and they learn best in such situations. However, Sentinel U simulations provide a better retention of knowledge and critical thinking as a result of decision-making that occurs repeatedly and is case-based, whereas Laerdal SimMan builds practical clinical skills and collaboration.

It is feasible to evaluate education using the simulations through the use of surveys, reflection journals, exams, skill rubrics, and OSCEs (Hippalgaonkar et al., 2023). Each of the simulations begins with goals that are described during the pre-briefing phase, proceeds to an interactive session, and ends with a review discussion. Following a scenario, Evan Wright is allowed to review a performance summary and feedback, and simulation manikins may watch videos and be provided with instructor feedback.

Both of these methods can be used to enhance reflective learning among students and assist them in becoming better clinical roles. Sentinel U simulation debriefing can be reflective, with automated feedback or facilitated discussion, but is more interactive, with SimMan simulation debriefs focusing on teamwork, communication, and hands-on performance analyzed by video-recorded content or by notes of the observer.

Evidence-Based Rationale

Both simulations are supported by research as being involved in building various capabilities in nurses. According to El-Rashidy et al. (2021), the simulations presented by Evan Wright are focused on scenarios that contribute to the enhancement of knowledge and confidence in the work with chronic diseases. Through these platforms, students can employ ideas discussed during lectures to take safe tests that would increase their capability to think about what they are undertaking.

In the meantime, high-fidelity simulation studies by Barbadoro et al. (2023) have verified the positive results of this modality in terms of accuracy of skills, higher confidence, and stress tolerance. It has been stated that Sentinel U is effective in the teaching of theory and strategies; however, high-fidelity manikins are required to improve both the practice of skills and response habits.

Teaching Physical Assessment

Although Sentinel U simulation of Evan Wright and high-fidelity manikins have advantages, they complement each other in the physical assessment instruction. The Evan Wright case provides a challenge to the learners to be able to detect the initial symptoms of complications in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, including leg pain, redness, loss of sensation, and delays in capillary responses.

By making students explain their findings and connect them to the corresponding pathophysiological processes, the simulation attains the goal of training them in the neurovascular assessment skills and helping them apply them to diabetic foot care (Bender et al., 2021). By comparison, high-fidelity manikins, such as Laerdal SimMan, can enable students to practice complete physical examination on a realistic model and provide immediate auditory and tactile feedback on the effectiveness of their use of auscultation, palpation, and a blood pressure cuff.

With case and pattern discussion as part of Evan Wright, healthcare students can acquire skills in reasoning, and training on high-fidelity manikins can enable them to practice the required skills in the assessment (Bender et al., 2021). Whereas Sentinel U enhances diagnostic reasoning, SimMan proves more helpful in improving tactile and procedural skills critical in making a proper physical assessment. As an example, assessment of a diabetic patient with vascular complications through identification of flattened pedal pulses is most conveniently done with the Responsive physiology of SimMan.

Teaching Pharmacology

The Evan Wright simulation and high-fidelity manikin (HFM) scenarios address integration of pharmacological concepts differently, though some are better than others. Evan Wright puts metformin, insulin, NSAIDs, and antibiotics where the learner must consider the renal functioning, the interaction of the drug, how much should be administered, and the patient factors such as age and the rate at which the disease progresses. The guidelines in making clinical decisions are published by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the like, which makes the student see the effects of the drug, its targets, and possible risks (Bender et al., 2021).

The simulation is immediate feedback, which supports the knowledge regarding drug mechanisms, such as the use of insulin in regulating glucose and its side effects. This virtual world helps to develop critical thinking, as it would make students explain the pharmacologic decision relying on comorbidities, laboratory findings, and the patient’s history.

Conversely, high-fidelity manikins provide learners with the opportunity to apply practical techniques to administer injections, IV sticks, and administer emergency care in such cases as hypoglycemia, and demonstrate to learners how to act in the event of dangerous side effects. Nevertheless, one can hardly apply drug-related management to HFM cases unless the situation involves much clinical information or prompts encouraged by the educator (Bender et al., 2021).

Evan Wright lets students understand how to choose, track and comprehend the impact of drugs on patients more than other aids, and this enables nursing students to effectively employ pharmacology in their learning. Students combine physical practice of drawing and dispensing medicines, imitation of the method of IV push or infusion, and monitoring of changes in the vital signs under the influence of drugs. The programming of SimMan can synthesize the response of an adverse reaction or therapeutic improvement, which can instruct learners to make sense of the connection between pharmacokinetics and patient outcomes.

Teaching Pathophysiology

Evan Wright demonstrates pathophysiology better in the simulation than in the typical situations in the framework of HFM. Evan Wright describes particulars of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and its complications, including neuropathy, ineffective blood circulation, and the risk of infection, which allows students to understand that slow capillary refill, poor sensation in the legs, and pain in them can be caused by T2DM. With the help of the simulation, learners are able to observe the impact of chronic diseases on various systems and anticipate typical complications like ischemia, renal damage, and cardiac issues (Ndumele et al., 2023).

The simulation demonstrates to the students the manner in which they should embrace various treatments or actions since it imitates new disease symptoms. Manikins such as Laerdal SimMan are more appropriate to depict sudden alterations such as tremors or shortness of breath, yet their impact on persistent and widespread severe diseases is often not yet evident until the facilitator or scenario adds a lot of additional information (Valente et al., 2023). Consequently, Evan Wright presents a structured and single-minded method of knowing pathophysiology, and the particular focus on the treatment of chronic diseases and improved orientation of treatment of the patients.

Sentinel U uses pathophysiological ideas by incorporating the disease processes with realistic patient situations that demand the learners to comprehend symptoms, laboratory, and histories to identify the diagnosis and care plans accurately. The Evan Wright scenario is when learners evaluate the effects of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus on peripheral circulation and neuropathy and make associations between hyperglycemia, vascular damage, and leg pain.

The simulation will help the students to use the reasoning of pathophysiology to justify their care decisions, upholding theoretical knowledge and clinical reasoning, but without exposing real patients to harm (Ndumele et al., 2023). This enhances the development of a better insight into the development of chronic diseases and the way they alter physical and pharmacologic interventions.

Challenges and Benefits

The Evan Wright virtual simulation by Sentinel U is associated with a number of features that are helpful in enhancing nursing education. It gives students the opportunity to do clinical thinking exercises anywhere because it is cheap, flexible, and can accommodate any number of students; this is because of the on-site or online classes. The program is in compliance with the INACSL Standards of Best Practice in Simulation and aligns with the ideas of the Simulation Theory by Jeffries, and thus, it promotes student-centered learning, enhances the process of reflection, and achieves competency-based outcomes (Salcedo et al., 2022).

Since it is ADA-compliant, the simulation would aid in ensuring that students with physical or sensory disabilities would be able to utilize its tools, including screen readers and captioned material. However, a deficiency in tactile teaching restrains the learning process since games do not provide one with the feeling of performing actions with their hands. Moreover, in case of students having poor technology at home, this mode of teaching may not be easy to them.

Conversely, the HFMs offer unprecedented amounts of realism and assist in training emergency-related treatment, dealing with crises, and organizing teams of medical personnel. Students can train performing such activities as CPR, IV insertion, and hearing breathing and heart sounds with the aid of tools, simultaneously with a change of conditions of a patient. Due to these characteristics, HFMs assist in the formation of motor skills and the enhancement of the ability of people to observe what is going on around them. Nevertheless, HFMs have significant challenges when it comes to use.

This type of simulation is not readily available, requires a special room and equipment, and trained personnel to install and maintain (Salcedo et al., 2022). Students with physical disabilities also have the problem of ADA due to their inability to undertake most of the manual and physical activities. Despite the fact that Sentinel U is easily applicable to chronic care education to enhance the decisions as well as the confidence of the learners, high-level readiness of a situation, such as an ACL situation, demands high-fidelity simulation.

Recommendations

The Evan Wright module of Sentinel U must be a primary component of any nursing program that addresses issues related to chronic diseases and clinical decision-making. The simulation program provides the students with a clear, simple, and effective method of practicing critical thinking and decision making in the care of the patients in accordance with the suggestions provided in the Simulation Theory by Jeffries and the INACSL Standards.

HFM labs must be utilized on a regular basis in order to enhance practical skills and expertise in emergency situations. In such a way, with the help of such an approach, students learn to perform practical work and, at the same time, can reason with the theoretical concepts (Maries & Singh, 2023). The two simulation tools are backed by peer-reviewed research to enhance the way students learn, and the evaluation forms regarding the aid provided by each to the various aspects of nursing education.

Conclusion

The simulation and manikins used in Sentinel U, provided by Evan Wright, are both beneficial and add value to the learning process of nurses. It simplifies and streamlines the process of creating the management of chronic conditions and clinical reasoning. Manikins that are of high fidelity are useful in conducting and becoming confident in various procedures. All technologies are effective in their own right, and a combination of both is more wholesome to learn. With the two abilities taught in the curriculum, the students would have acquired knowledge on issues they would encounter in the actual nursing practice.