Poster Program
Purpose for the Program
Team collaboration is crucial to optimizing patient safety. The management of emergencies requires not only technical skills but also communication, leadership, and the ability to maintain situational awareness. Simulation is a useful tool for team training and strengthening teamwork. However, because of COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, the team needed innovative strategies to facilitate staff education. This presented an opportunity to increase patient safety around postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) with a new training program designed to optimize team performance during restrictions related to the pandemic.
Proposed Change
Promote patient safety by developing and implementing an innovative educational program to support the roll-out of a new emergency code response for PPH to the interprofessional team. The initiative was designed to improve clinicians’ recognition of, readiness for, and response to PPH based on Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses’s (AWHONN’s) guidelines.
Implementation
During the COVID-19 pandemic, an interprofessional team convened virtually to strategize about how to disseminate information and prepare the team for changes related to a new emergency code response for PPH. Nurses partnered with interprofessional team members, including obstetricians and midwives, anesthesiologists, pharmacists and the blood bank, to create PPH emergency code scenarios. Clinical nurse education specialists engaged a core group of nurses as unit champions (UC). UCs received training to become experts in facilitating in situ simulations. A multimodal educational plan that included virtual PPH emergency code response simulation, in situ simulations, policy update (read and sign), and a posttest was developed.
Outcomes and Evaluation
All nurses were required to read and sign the PPH policy and complete a posttest. Posttest scores fell between 90% and 100%. In addition, nurses, providers, and obstetric technicians recorded a simulation video focusing on the PPH emergency code response. Approximately 300 interprofessional team members completed the education and reviewed the simulation video, and 98% of all team members participated in in situ simulations.
Implications for Nursing Practice
Communication and interprofessional collaboration are crucial to provide safe patient care. The use of creative educational strategies promotes staff engagement and elevates nursing practice. Research suggests that in situ simulations have a positive effect on nurses' confidence level in the recognition and initiation of interventions in emergencies. Timely interventions during a PPH emergency can save lives.