Program Summary:
Faculty, students and employers identified a gap in the OWC nursing students' access to clinical learning opportunities, i.e., crisis intervention with patients and families and prevention of medical errors through effective reporting and medical order transcription.  Due to legal constraints imposed by clinical sites, nursing students had not been allowed to take telephone medical orders from physicians; neither had all students been able to give oral or telephone patient condition reports to physicians.  Likewise, faculty could not guarantee all students access to patients and families in crisis situations that would allow students the opportunity to communicate empathetically with them.  Graduates and employers alike cited similar areas of needed improvement in their feedback to the nursing program.  To help improve educational outcomes and to provide more efficient and effective learning experiences for all students, the faculty developed the Standardized Patient Simulation Laboratory (SPSL).