Abstract:
Mount Washington has been known as a leader in the area of preparing our families to safely take and care for their critically fragile children at home. In 2019, National data suggests HHC quality and availability is not optimized for children with medical technology, including CMV. There just were not enough trained Homecare nurses to support the number of critically fragile vent dependent children entering the community. At times family caregivers having to step in due to untrained staff not having emergent skills.
Through collaboration with parents of children on CMV, Simulation educators, and a range of clinicians, we developed The Ventilator Nurse Training program (VeNT). The VeNT program is innovative in its ability to reach many pediatric HHC nurses by leveraging a Train the Trainer model. Due to COVID-19 restrictions we adapted in-person clinical simulation trainings to a virtual model. With a model training program in place, the focus became on how to safely discharge these children home when there were no nurses available.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital history of using simulation to train family caregivers to support their vent dependent children.
- Describe how Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital educators addressed the shortage of trained Homecare Healthcare Nurses.
- Define how the Mount Washington team modified the VeNT model to address both in-person and remote training to overcome participation barriers.