This chapter describes how simulation fits the needs for 21st-century nursing education. It covers the aspects include the changing needs for nursing education in a technologically complex environment, how to succeed when incorporating simulation, the importance of the faculty role in embedding simulation throughout the nursing curriculum, meeting the challenges of clinical placement, and specific challenges and benefits to integrating simulation into the curriculum with an evidence-based practice focus. Simulation provides the missing piece for nursing education through harnessing each student’s enthusiasm for technology into an interactive and valuable learning experience in which to engage in critical thinking (Radhakrishnan, Roche, & Cunningham, 2007). Simulation takes on a life of its own, thus becoming "real" to the students. In conclusion, this chapter has emphasized the importance of integrating a simulation-focused pedagogy throughout the curriculum to best meet the needs of our program.

Educators use simulation in seminar experiences to teach key concepts from lecture and reading assignments in order to encourage critical thinking among students in all phases of the nursing program. Some of their important focuses are evidence-based practice, standards of care, and patient safety. This chapter presents a scenario of acute management of a patient in pulmonary edema. Overall objectives of the scenario are for students to demonstrate critical thinking skills in the care of the complex patient. Students must be able to identify inconsistencies with hand-off communication, recognize symptoms, and establish treatment options for acute respiratory distress as a result of congestive heart failure or pulmonary edema. It is recommended that students have basic knowledge from lecture regarding congestive heart failure and pulmonary edema prior to the scenario. In addition, there should be a discussion regarding treatment of respiratory distress and medications most frequently used.

The interprofessional simulation in this chapter is ideal for nursing students in prelicensure baccalaureate, registered nurse (RN)-to-Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students, or graduate programs. It serves pharmacy, respiratory, or medical students and is appropriate for a professional development activity for health care professionals responding to cardiac emergencies. St. John’s College of Nursing in Springfield, Illinois, offers this simulation in the baccalaureate program to medical-surgical students during their penultimate semester in the program, after completion of two other medical-surgical courses spiraled in difficulty. This simulation-based pedagogy allows evidence-based practice in a faculty-supported environment where students can gain confidence and learn from their actions, as well as by observing interprofessional peers. Respiratory care students complete the advanced cardiovascular life support (ACLS) provider course before this interprofessional education (IPE) and have additional prereading about cardiovascular resuscitation.

In 1980, the structure identified as Introduction, Methodology, Results, and Discussion (IMRaD) attained preeminence in scientific, medical, and nursing disciplines as the established format for presentations and publications. This chapter helps the reader by describing the purposes of the IMRaD sections and in incorporating evidence-based practice (EBP) and quality improvement (QI) into each IMRaD section. The introduction section tells the reader why the Doctor of Nursing Practice project was undertaken, and the methodology explains how it was undertaken. The purpose of the results section is to display and describe the outcome information gathered in the methodology section. The analysis of data, presented in the results section, is included as part of the discussion section. The chapter reviews the adaptation of EBP and QI projects to the IMRaD format and discusses the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence 2.0 (SQUIRE 2.0) guidelines which are easily adaptable to the IMRaD format.

Educating the Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) has become more challenging and requires additional expertise on the part of the educator, especially as clinical settings have become more complex and clinical sites more limited. Simulation has the ability to evaluate APRN competency, clinical reasoning, and multifocal learning domains by utilizing validated tools in a controlled environment, thus increasing the reliability of the evaluation. This strategy of developing simulation experiences for the APRN uses the A to Z Clinical Simulation Template for the Advanced Practice Registered Nurse, which is designed to support the training and evaluation of APRN students, novice nurse practitioners (NPs), and APRNs transitioning to new fields. The objective of this teaching strategy is to develop engaging simulated experiences for the APRN utilizing a standardized template to promote evidence-based practice and meet the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) accreditation and APRN certification criteria.

Debriefing is a teaching strategy positioned to transform students’ learning and practice preparation for high-quality, safe patient care in today’s complex healthcare setting. Effective debriefing in simulation engages participants in a critical learning conversation so that they will reflect on patient care and context, identify strengths and performance gaps, and ultimately bring together fortified knowledge, skills, and patient-centered perspectives to improve future practice. Ensuring effective debriefing in simulation aligns with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) baccalaureate essentials–based learning for evidence-based practice, high-quality care, and patient safety. Additionally, effective debriefing fulfills National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) and National League for Nursing (NLN) recommendations for excellence in simulation-based education. Faculty time is a key factor in the ability to continuously practice and participate in debriefings and receive feedback, and the opportunity to fine-tune and improve upon the art of debriefing.

The National League for Nursing promotes the use of evidence-based learning to stimulate and improve critical thinking skills among undergraduate nursing students. Contemporary nursing educators will recognize the importance of using creative and evidence-based teaching strategies to prepare the future nursing workforce. This chapter describes a novel classroom approach to learning in a first-sequence undergraduate core clinical nursing course that integrates the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies. QSEN aims to prepare nurse educators to address the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to successfully mentor future generations of nurses. Providing safe and competent care to all patients is emphasized. This innovative teaching strategy utilizes an in-class care mapping activity that employs the six QSEN competencies of patient-centered care: evidence-based practice; quality improvement; informatics; safety; teamwork; and collaboration.

The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project embodies the essence of DNP education. DNP projects are hallmarks of nursing scholarship and practice that contribute significantly to the translation of science into clinical practice. This chapter helps the reader to recognize indicators of quality in a DNP project paper; to describe how quality DNP project papers impact healthcare; and to determine appropriate use of evidence-based practice (EBP), research; and quality improvement in a DNP project paper. Understanding the quality and impact of DNP projects helps lead to successful DNP project papers. DNP projects greatly influence healthcare and are often deserving of widespread dissemination through publication. This chapter puts forth critical preliminary ideas that help ensure DNP projects and DNP project papers are conceptualized and created in a way that will support successful completion and further dissemination to the healthcare and scientific communities.

For nursing students and novice nurses, mastering handoff is one of the challenges of expert practice. There is limited information on how to evaluate the effectiveness of nursing students’ handoff during their clinical education. In medical education, there are a number of tools described in the literature related to feedback and assessment of handoffs, which can be adopted to evaluate nursing handoffs. Effective handoff with the students can be enhanced by finding a suitable space for the pre-conference to take place, away from areas with heavy foot traffic such as the staff cafeteria. Compliance remains a challenge in the implementation of evidence-based practice, and handoff is not immune to lapses in adherence. This chapter helps the reader to implement best practices in handoff communication during clinical experience and utilize a standardized handoff form for use in change-of-shift report.