Virtual Home Visit Simulates Reality for Nursing Students

Nursing education and community health clinical experiences take on a new dimension as the College of Nursing embarks on a virtual reality initiative. Using Second Life, a web based virtual world, the College has established a virtual community available for faculty and students to use as a teaching-learning tool.

Spartan Health Island, the College of Nursing's community within Second Life, provides community health assessment and intervention simulations for traditional BSN and Accelerated Option students. In the initial community experience, students animate a nurse avatar and visit the home of a client who has recently been diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. Students are able to explore community resources for the family, and interact live with the client and other family members.

The virtual home visit experience, launched in the "Nursing 470: Community Health and Population Nursing” course, provides an opportunity for students to conduct a virtual family assessment in a community setting.

Throughout the virtual interface they are mentored by a faculty member while another member of the College animates and interacts in the role of a client avatar. The questions that the student asks help to extract pertinent health information within the context of the client's family, community and culture. Upon completion of the virtual home visit the student then provides a written assessment to complete the assignment.

The primary aim of the Spartan Health Island project is to use virtual reality simulation that prepares students for safe practice while interacting with virtual clients in community health settings. Health promotion and risk reduction are also emphasized, as well as curricular concepts of global cultural competence, communication, critical thinking, and ethical based practice.

Initial feedback provided from participating faculty members is positive. They express satisfaction in being able to observe the students conducting the visit and the ability to provide guidance and direction without having to take over the experience. This non-threatening approach allows students a safe, practice run of a home visit.

As an early adopter of the program, Kathleen Bappert, MS, RN, has utilized Spartan Health Island with her students over the course of three semesters. "I believe that one of the advantages to doing a home visit with a virtual client is that students are able to make mistakes without feeling embarrassed. Clinical instructors can explore with students the differences in communication with patients in a hospital versus interactions that take place in the home setting,” Bappert said.

Students that have participated thus far expressed noteworthy satisfaction with the project, highlighting points such as convenience, comfort, decreased stress and increased learning opportunities.

"It allowed the comfort of not being "alone" in the home with people that you have just met and provided the ability to ask all the questions we needed to ask,” one student said.

Spartan Health Island virtual activities are expanding into pediatric nursing course content as well as being considered for use in the RN to BSN online courses. Future Second Life development is underway for virtual simulations in the nurse practitioner, certified nurse specialist and nurse anesthesia programs.