Debra Litzelman, M.D., M.A., explains that while standardized patients have long been used in face-to-face clinical training, the pandemic created an opportunity to pilot a novel approach.
Transcript:
The virtual standardized patients is novel in that standardized patients have been used for training of health professionals for a long time. They’re often used face to face and in simulation centers in clinical training sites, but during the pandemic and COVID, where a lot of training was moved to a virtual stage, it was an opportunity for us to pilot the virtual use over video chat of these trained, standardized patients.
Dr. Litzelman hopes that using viritual standarized patients will pave the way to national geriatric workforce training.
Transcript:
Our hope from this pilot work is that by showing the effectiveness of the virtual standardized patients for bachelor’s level nursing, that this can be taken up not only by the School of Nursing in Indiana but really to any one of the programs involved in the Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program and beyond to any school of nursing that would like to adapt this.