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Nursing Students Readying to Save Lives

by Crystal Dee Fuller, RN, MSN, CRNP
Coosa Valley School of Nursing
Central Alabama Community College 

Recognizing the findings in a patient with an impending myocardial infarction (MI) and intervening appropriately is essential for healthcare providers in improving patient outcomes. How this recognition best occurs depends not only on the underlying informative knowledge, but one’s experiences in applying this knowledge. A Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement, evidence-based project was implemented by the DNP student. The project provided a foundation for a change in the educational practices in a small community college nursing school, in an effort to better prepare students to positively affect patient outcomes as they enter the workforce. The system of change is identified as a community college school of nursing in rural Alabama, which has a state-mandated curriculum. A high-fidelity simulation exercise of impending MI was introduced. The scenario of a hospitalized patient was presented who experienced chest pain. High-fidelity simulation allowed mannequin-student verbal communication, physical findings, and EKG monitor changes which occur in this population of patients. Prompt recognition of this high-risk patient scenario and action taken is imperative for optimal patient outcomes. The exercise allowed students to experience and practice this high-risk finding in a safe environment. Evaluation and findings from the project suggest that the nursing students feel more confident in developing skills and knowledge of patients experiencing an MI and feel better prepared to intervene in the actual clinical setting.

Key words: simulation, active learning, myocardial infarction

Nursing Students Readying to Save Lives

Introduction

  Improving patient outcomes is the fundamental goal of all disciplines of healthcare, whether it is medicine, rehabilitation, nursing, or any of the many other providers of care. Core to the ability to providing optimal care is an understanding of human performance and the effects of disorder on this performance. This understanding comes at varying times throughout a healthcare provider’s lifetime. In the case of a patient experiencing an acute myocardial infarction (MI), it is detrimental to the patient outcome for the caregiver to promptly recognize this disease process’s effects on human performance and intervene appropriately and safely.

  It is reported by Hand, Keenan, Ruggiero, and Simmons (2000) that approximately 1.1 million Americans experience an acute myocardial infarction every year with nearly 500,000 of them dying, one-half of which occur with 60 minutes of symptom onset. Medical science has provided treatment plans aimed at reducing cardiac muscle damage. Patient outcomes, however, depend on how quickly the impending MI is recognized and treatments initiated. The shorter the period of time between symptom onset, recognition and treatment, the greater number of lives saved.

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