COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Nursing Student Education: Telenursing with Virtual Clinical Experiences

Abstract

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic affected nursing students dramatically when the clinical sites and the onsite classrooms closed to physical participation. This necessitated a move to virtual classrooms and virtual clinical experiences. Some nursing schools adopted telenursing to comply with their Board of Registered Nursing direct patient care requirements. Students value the hands-on nursing in a direct care facility and clinical instructors must replicate this in a virtual setting. This article discusses telenursing and Teach-Back processes with student active engagement that facilitates learning and meets the direct care requirement. The purpose is to share best practice ideas for clinical instructors to educate when clinical settings are unavailable. Methods This innovation includes examples from five clinical instructors when in-person clinicals were not available due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They used virtual teaching and telenursing for nursing students which complied with clinical requirements of preconference, clinical experience, and post-conference. Telenursing combines case studies or shared documents, student collaboration, and includes a patient or patient actor via telehealth. Clinical instructors present a patient history or case study and allow students time for preparation. Socratic questioning helps students focus on determining the correct questions to ask. Telenursing call to the patient and teach-back questioning validated patient learning. Following the call, the instructor leads a post-conference debrief and students independently document the call. Conclusion Five clinical instructors follow the process of pre-brief, case presentation, and debrief while students develop critical thinking, strong communication skills, documentation requirements, and utilize the nursing process of assessment, diagnosis, outcome, plan, interventions, and evaluation. Students will have future opportunities to develop hands-on skills as they return to the clinical setting.

Predicting nursing students' intention to attend face‐to‐face classes on school reopening: A theory of planned behavior application

“…This practical course component cannot be fully learned by online modality 14 . Resumption of face‐to‐face classes will offer nursing students the chance to hone their practical nursing and clinical skills as they go back to the clinical setting 29 . We also note that the majority of the students are already vaccinated.…”

Nursing students' motivational and self‐regulated learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A cross‐sectional study

“…The National Council for State Boards of Nursing recommended that simulation learning replacing traditional clinical practice not exceed 50% of the total clinical hours prior to the pandemic (Hayden et al, 2014 ), but many US state nursing boards allow this on a temporary basis, even if it exceeds 50% (Texas Board of Nursing, 2020 ). In California, the clinical training simulation hours temporarily increased from 25% to 50%, and clinical education was operated by mixing direct patient nursing, remote nursing, and simulation (Hargreaves et al, 2021 ). In Korea, before the pandemic, 120 h of simulation practice were recognized out of 1000 h of clinical nursing practicum essential for accreditation by the Korean Accreditation Board of Nursing Education.…”

Nursing Students’ Clinical Practice Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study

“…The pandemic, however, gives students a chance to master technology [22]. Technology is used during online counseling and communication due to the lack of face-to-face meetings [6].…”

“…Students' creativity in finding information about clinical skills and cases on the internet is a reasonable basis for using technology in clinical learning. One study proposes the use of telenursing to anticipate reduced clinical placement opportunities [22]. This virtual method needs to be developed to provide a real clinic-like situation.…”