Urgent care clinics benefit from healthcare simulation scenarios and training as do all clinical healthcare environments. There is a lot of promise in the development and advancement of healthcare simulation programs within this clinical environment. This article by Erin Carn-Bennett, MSN, RN will explore healthcare simulation in the urgent care practice environment and will include suggestions for areas of potentiality to hone and practice key clinical and team based skills in the care of deteriorated patients in the urgent care environment.
Urgent Care Team Work is Different
Urgent care providers in most clinics across the world work in isolation a lot of the time. However, when a patient deteriorates rapidly in the urgent care environment teams will gather together to care for the patient while transportation to more definitive care is organized through emergency services. Due to the environmental nature of clinical work in isolation, healthcare simulation provides an opportunity for urgent care clinic staff to be able to gather together and practice. Clinical simulation is a way for these teams to be able to practice and hone their communication and team based skills in an emergency for both clinical and non clinical staff.
The opportunity to gather together and share pressure points, challenges and learnings from other team members is great for organizational culture and connections. The ability to practice responses for urgent care team members such as to call emergency services in a critical clinical emergency can be greatly beneficial. The opportunity to also employ human factors skills while under high levels of stress and enable a team to work effectively together is incredibly useful. This assists to prepare clinical teams for challenging clinical events and is a great use of resources and time for all involved. Such a scenario can also be a great opportunity for non clinical staff such as receptionists to practice such vital skills and become more confident.
Clinical simulation can be incredibly helpful to test out urgent care clinic environments and to reflect on the layout of the urgent care clinic in terms of patient flow. Healthcare simulation programs can be developed to meet a number of needs within the urgent care clinic setting. These may include but not be limited to: environmental testing, management of a critically unwell patient and team work and human factors elements not often used by the clinic staff.
Healthcare simulation scenarios in urgent care environments are a great way to be able to pick up any potential or actual risks to staff and patients. To pick up these risks without the cause of harm to patients and staff is a high standard of safety reporting which can be useful data for management in conversations with executive level for replacement of equipment and advancement of urgent care clinics provision of care. In the long term the use of healthcare simulation in this manner can both save money and improve patient safety.
Clinical Skill Acquisition in Healthcare Simulation
As well as the management of the critically unwell patient, other clinical skills can be refined in clinical simulation scenarios. These clinical skills include but are not limited to recognition of an unwell patient and the opportunity to practice interventions in the urgent care environment as a team. The prioritization of clinical care and time frames around these can be beneficial and impactful for those involved in the clinical simulation scenario.
Other skills that can be beneficial to put into practice are those with even more depth around human factors and ergonomics. Examples of these skills can include room layout in an emergency, roles of staff members and communication skills to be practiced in a clinical emergency. The healthcare simulation scenario provides staff with an experience which is then used as a tool for guided reflection in debrief.
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Resuscitation equipment which is seldom used such as a defibrillator can also have the opportunity to be used in an urgent care clinical simulation scenario. When not familiar and used regularly the defibrillator can be a daunting piece of emergency equipment for many clinical staff. Healthcare simulation scenarios are a great opportunity for staff to practice working as a team to achieve best patient outcomes with current skills.
Urgent Care Clinical Simulation Benefits for Administrators
For clinic administrators, the development of a psychologically safe healthcare simulation program can be incredibly beneficial in a number of ways. Team bonding and wellbeing of staff can be enhanced with the use of clinical simulation when done in a firm foundation of psychological safety. The impact from meaningful clinical simulation experiences and debriefs can be an incredibly worthwhile financial investment. This can in turn assist staff feel more valued and assist to contribute towards the retention of staff.
A healthcare simulation program in the urgent care environment can be achieved through the investment to grow a local clinical simulation based educator as one option. Other options include an investment into external healthcare simulation experts to come into the urgent care clinic environment to deliver clinical simulation scenarios or experiences. A combination of both of these elements can also work well for a local educator to be well supported and also grow their healthcare simulation delivery skillset.
Healthcare simulation is the ideal environment for many adult learners to be self motivated to improve and have a space for safe experimentation without causing patient harm. Reflection in clinical simulation debrief is the ideal place for an adult learner to externally process what has happened in the clinical simulation and how clinical care would be adapted for next time.
The most common and expected emergencies in the urgent care environment of a rapidly deteriorating patient are a great place to center a healthcare simulation curriculum around. Some examples of these cases may include: asthma, anaphylaxis, bronchiolitis, sepsis, adult shockable cardiac arrest and head injury or trauma dependant on the urgent care clinic location. Other healthcare simulation scenarios may be of more relevance dependant on many other factors and patient population base.
Psychological safety of healthcare simulation participants to maximize the learning experience is of great importance. Psychological safety is paramount to be central to any clinical simulation program no matter where the physical location. The urgent care clinical environment in the primary healthcare setting is an incredibly worthwhile and impactful clinical area to focus healthcare simulation in order to maximize impact for patient safety and also improve the environment for both patient and staff. An investment into a well trained and psychologically safe healthcare simulation program can yield returns for the executive level from the receptionists to senior doctor, right the way through to the patient in many facets of care.
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