Q & A With the CNA Instructors Behind CNA Simulations
On August 25th, 2022, CNA Simulations hosted a Live Q & A with the nursing assistant (NA) instructors behind CNA Simulations’ Content.
Throughout the forty-five minute session, the CNA Simulations content team, including the Founder, Dr. Charlene Brown, the Nursing Content Lead, Jennifer DeRose-Bargar MSN, RN, and the Nursing Content Developer, Danielle Young RN, discussed how the CNA Simulations’ virtual clinical simulation scenarios help nurse aide students build their communication, critical thinking, and clinical skills.
Introductions (1:00-3:45)
CNA Simulations Nursing Content Developer, Danielle Young RN
In this webinar section, Dr. Charlene Brown introduced the audience to DeRose-Bargar MSN, RN, and Young RN, two critical members of the CNA Simulations team.
After this, Dr. Brown introduced the first-of-their-kind virtual web-based simulations they developed. The clinical simulations can be used to reduce nursing assistant education's reliance on physical clinical sites, supplement gaps in nursing faculty, amplify real-world experiences in a safe environment, improve the critical thinking skills of students, and effectively prepare them for the workforce.
Simulation Demonstration (3:45-8:30)
At this point in the webinar, Dr. Brown dove into one of CNA Simulations' clinical simulations to demonstrate it for those in attendance. The five primary parts of a CNA Simulations simulations are:
The Patient Care Plan
A Pre-Simulation Quiz
The Simulation
Documentation
A Post-Simulation Quiz
A Post-Simulation Reflection
The demonstration done by Dr. Brown used simulations for Ms. Sophie Williams, and another for Mrs. Cruz, fictional older-adult residents on whom the student would perform care. Within the simulation, the students must practice soft skills such as communication as well as the information on the specifics of care that students are taught in class like measuring respiratory rate. As Dr. Brown explained, in the simulation the students are assisted by CNA Simulations-created nurse, Nurse Johnson, who provides real-time positive and constructive feedback as they progress through the simulation.
From the Instructors, Q&A (8:30-43:00)
In this section of the session, CNA Simulations content creators and nursing instructors DeRose-Bargar MSN, RN, and Young RN discuss some of the key skills that the clinical simulations will help CNA students build, and how.
“They have a hard time in the classroom, in the lab, because they're trying to act like a patient, and they’re trying to act like a nursing assistant, but it's really difficult to get that to feel real.”
-Jennifer DeRose-Bargar RN
Communication:
On the topic of communication, DeRose-Bargar MSN, RN discusses the common issues that students have in learning and why. Then she discussed how the simulations they have written and how the characters within the simulations are built to help students improve with communication. DeRose-Bargar MSN, RN emphasizes how students need to do more than communicate with a patient, they also need to communicate with their instructor and other students.
Real-Time Feedback:
“Not all instructors teach the same way, not all skills are done the same way, this is another opportunity for students to learn that they can do the correct task in more than one way.”
-Celine Champine RN, MSEd
Young RN explains the two ways that students have real-time feedback within simulations when students answer incorrectly, and in the learn-more section when students do get a correct answer but are unsure and would like more feedback. In the learn-more section, students can get lots of important information that can help them understand what they are doing better.
Also mentioned in this section is the advantage that virtual clinical simulations have over real-life is that it gives students a chance to practice and do so in unique situations they have not faced before.
“My favorite part of Nurse Johnson, as the provider of real-time feedback, is her personality and how she's an amalgam of all of our personalities.”
-Founder, Dr. Charlene Brown
Critical Thinking Skills:
This is an area that the CNA team has heard a lot about from their fellow instructors about how to best help students build their clinical critical thinking skills. In this section, the Young RN and DeRose-Bargar MSN, RN discuss the specifics of the CNA clinical scenarios they design and how they address this concern.
Student Confidence:
Lastly, the CNA Simulations team talks about the ways that their virtual clinical simulations can build student confidence for a couple of reasons:
Students can retake simulations over and over until they feel completely confident
Being able to be in scenarios that give them a chance to practice all of what they learn in class as opposed to real-life that are out of instructors’ control in terms of what patients need assistance with.
“I will be using the modules when we start in January. I am really excited about the feedback that I have gotten this afternoon, and am really anxious to use it with my students.”
-Celine Champine RN, MSEd
Student Safety:
In this section, the CNA Simulations team discussed how virtual simulations could help teach clinical skills and safety in a risk-free environment with fictional older adults. Content ranges from maintaining proper posture while moving residents to reminding students to lock their residents’ bed wheels, to performing hand hygiene, and more.
“We’re crafting stories and designing stories in ways that present challenges that force students to make decisions about their safety and the safety of residents.”
-Charlene Brown MD, MPH, FACPM
Schedule a Demo
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