Simple Infant Simulation: Low Tech Solutions for Teaching Infant Assessment

Purpose for the program: Nursing students need practice with newborn and infant assessment. Simulation is a great teaching tool. Unfortunately, infant simulators cost thousands of dollars and are technologically overstuffed for the needs of nursing students. Simulators provide experience with interosseous injection and tracheal intubation, skills nursing students do not need. Simple counting of respirations and heart rate are overwhelming enough for the beginning student. Simple infant simulation can be developed using low cost dolls and a bit of creativity. Much of the value of simulation is not in the technological, but in the psychological. Low tech infant simulation is an economical and effective way to enrich nursing education.

Proposed change: Simulators are expensive and require expensive training for the faculty as well. Beginning nurses and students do not need the highly technical infant simulators to learn basic assessment of the infant. Simple infant simulation allows the nurse to learn from their mistakes in an atmosphere of safety and lightheartedly gain insight into difficult situations. Introducing simple infant simulation saves educational dollars without sacrificing education.

Implementation, outcomes and evaluation: Attendees will get hands on practice with using simple dolls and many simple innovations to create an infant simulation scenario. Simple infant simulation gets the learner involved with the process of simulation, helping them to think clinically.  Outcomes: 

• Identify cost effective infant simulation strategies to enhance nursing education
• Recognize the value of innovative teaching methods in infant simulation.
• Develop simple infant simulation scenarios to meet students’ needs.

A post-simulation meeting is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the simulation. Attendees would actually build their own simulations in small groups and then evaluate their own and others performance during the simulation.

Implications for nursing practice: Simple infant simulation will allow nurses to learn the basic assessment skills of the newborn without the expense of buying high tecnology simulators. Cost effectiveness is essential in the economy of shrinking budgets we are presently experiencing. This innovative way of learning infant assessment helps the nurse achieve the following outcomes:

• Demonstrates professional behavior in appearance and actions
• Assesses and demonstrates respect for the holistic needs of family and clients
• Demonstrate effective newborn assessment skills.(head to toe assessment and vital signs of infant)
• Analyzes own communication skills
• Identifies priorities of care based on the unique assessment and analysis of the client and family
• Demonstrates actions to reduce risks related to safety of client
• Applies principles of infection control measures (hand hygiene, room assignments, isolation, aseptic/sterile techniques, universal/standard precautions)

Keywords: Simulation, infant, assessment, simple, education, nursing.