Authentic practice environments to support undergraduate nursing students’ readiness for hospital placements. A new model of practice in an on campus simulated hospital and health service

Abstract

This paper reports on a unique practice based learning model to prepare undergraduate nursing students for clinical placement. The learning and teaching model described in this paper outlines the establishment of an entire on-campus simulated hospital and health service (SHHS) at the University of South Australia, School of Nursing and Midwifery. The model is pedagogically structured to immerse students in an authentic clinical environment to achieve deep learning in preparation for safe practice. A quality improvement cycle was used to evaluate the outcomes of the model in two phases: Phase 1: Purposive sampling of first and second year Bachelor of Nursing students from 2012 to 2015 who were surveyed about their satisfaction with the model of learning. Bachelor of Nursing students were invited to complete a survey about their experience with the teaching and learning model employed in the SHHS in response to the question, ‘What aspects of the SHHS are the most important to your success?’ Phase 2: External clinical stakeholders working with nursing students in clinical placements were asked to respond to questions about the preparedness of students educated in this model to transition to employment. The evaluation showed that the SHHS model positively influenced students' satisfaction and confidence and increased the perception of clinicians of the work readiness of students.