Developing multimedia resources to model clinical practice

Lecturer:
Rebecca Disler 

Faculty:
Health 

Project:
Modelling clinical behaviour: Developing student nurses' ability to understand and provide clinical handover using multimedia teaching platforms

Keywords:
Nursing, modeling clinical behaviour, communication, e-portfolios

By using multimedia resources and collaborative activities that model communication behaviours in a clinical setting, Rebecca Disler is looking to improve students’ understanding of the principles and importance of accurate information transfer during handovers.

In professional health contexts, a clinical handover is the “transfer of professional responsibility and accountability for some or all aspects of care for a patient, or group of patients, to another person or professional group”. An essential requirement of handovers is the transfer of succinct, accurate and relevant clinical information. This project centres on students using multimedia resources designed by the project team that models communication behaviours in these clinical contexts.

Communication in the clinical health setting is a challenge for undergraduate nursing students, particularly those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Even for those who have English as their first language, knowing how to critically engage with information, and being able to accurately transfer the appropriate clinical information – especially where people’s lives and wellbeing are at stake – is fundamental to safe and effective health management, and an essential element of professional nursing practice.

So this project focuses on the design of creative, integrated and collaborative learning experiences so that students develop the skills of receiving, documenting, prioritising and transmitting clinical information.

Throughout their studies, students engage in activities that mirror the clinical environment and assist them to develop the communication skills they require to successfully exchange information.

The project is currently being implemented during students’ second semester of study. Students receive the clinical handover materials developed by Ms Disler at the commencement of each laboratory class.

The lab materials contain:

• A digital recording with a variety of accents and handover styles exhibited.
• Case mock-ups including the essential and peripheral information students will need, and well as acronyms commonly used in the clinical setting (but as yet unfamiliar to students).
• Digital resources or students to return to in preparation for their clinical experience.

Working in groups, students are required to identify and extract the essential information, clarify any unknown information with their teacher and document the information within the introduced ISOBAR framework (Identification–Situation–Observations–Background–Action–Response).

The team have also designed an assessment task that builds on students’ work in labs, asking them to:

• Identify and select essential information from a case study containing a broad range of data, both relevant and irrelevant. 
• Use the relevant information to film a clinical handover session.
• Submit the filmed handover to their e-portfolio, showcasing their professional development and providing evidence of their graduate abilities to communicate professionally.
• Provide constructive feedback on their peers’ filmed handovers (accessed through the e-portfolios): its technique, framework and transfer of essential data.

Developing quality multimedia assessment items takes time, so it was important to start planning early and to consider carefully any changes to assessment items.

Another suggestion was to seek assistance from the Institute for Interactive Media and Learning when developing online assessment items and online repositories for subject resources such as videos.

Exploring further
Chaboyer, W. (2011). The clinical handover in Nursing
UTS: IML. e-Portfolios at UTS
UTS. Borrowing video cameras from AVS
Delving even deeper
Lorenzo, G. & Ittelson, J. (2005). Demonstrating and assessing student learning with e-portfolios. Educause Learning Initiative.
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