Using Healthcare Simulation to Improve the Care of People with Disabilities

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that there are more than 1 billion people with a disability, approximately 15% of the world’s population. The WHO also reports that not only is disability a global health issue but a human rights issue as well. While disability knows no bounds and affects all cultures, age groups, and socioeconomic levels, disability disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, including women, children, low-income, and minority groups. In turn, disability can disproportionally create vulnerability. There are approximately 20.7 million nurses worldwide in every practice setting and it is inevitable that nurses will have the opportunity and responsibility to provide direct care to People With Disabilities (PWDs). Yet content in nursing curricula specific to disability health care is limited. Therefore, competent practitioners fluent in the art and science of disability health care is essential for both professional practice and the improvement of health care delivery services and health outcomes of people with disabilities

The purpose of the Consultant with Disability Simulation Program (CDSP) is to provide authentic encounters within the healthcare simulation environment to undergraduate and graduate nursing students to improve competency and the care of individuals with disabilities and their families.

Goals:

• To build a community of consultants with disabilities.
• To enhance the simulation-based health care environment by delivering high-quality, authentic simulation experiences.
• To teach the competencies that will improve health care delivery services to individuals with disabilities.
• To disseminate knowledge about this model and teach excellence in authentic simulation methodology.

Since the implementation of the simulation program in fall 2018, the effort has reached approximately 600 undergraduate and graduate nursing students and provided professional development opportunities to over 125 full-time and adjunct faculty and staff at the DUSON. The effectiveness of the disabilities program was collected via 360 reviews where quantitative and qualitative data from faculty, students and consultants was gathered using online surveys. Simulated Patient (SP) consultants were impressed with the program and consistently report the highest satisfaction with the overall experience. A sample comment included the following: “I was really surprised by the warmth I experienced from the staff. I felt like I was an important piece of the operation. I really felt like a team member and like I had already been working there.”

In 2019, the Graduate Student survey ranked the SP experience as 4.44/5.00. Sixty percent felt it was a very important experience. In the 2020-2021 academic year, despite COVID-19, the program reached 324 undergraduate and second-degree students enrolled in Health Assessment and Population Health courses. These students reported a significant gain in their knowledge level at the end of the encounters. The overall mean ranking score reported by students for “The encounter will impact my future practice” was 93/100. Quantitative analyses were based on an 83% student response rate.

This webinar will show how nursing students observed firsthand the barriers which PWDs face within the systems of health care, education, employment, and housing. This program offered nursing students insight into their own theory-to-practice using nursing simulation.