Hospital to Home: A Quality Improvement Initiative to Implement High-fidelity Simulation Training for Caregivers of Children Requiring Long-term Mechanical Ventilation.
Jodi Thrasher, Joyce Baker, Kathleen M Ventre and 7 others
PMID 28943140WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers of ventilator-dependent children rated post-simulation debriefing as the most helpful part of discharge training, above the simulation itself, CPR, or handouts.
They valued the chance to practice emergency responses and build confidence before going home.
Key findings
01Post-simulation debriefing was rated as the most beneficial component of the training curriculum, scoring higher than the simulation scenarios, CPR training, videos, and printed handouts.
02In free-text feedback, 'Learning' was the most frequently cited benefit, followed by 'self-confidence' and 'preparedness'.
03The study did not find a statistically significant reduction in seven-day readmission rates, though the authors noted a trend suggesting a possible relationship.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This was a single-center quality improvement project, so the findings may not generalize to other hospitals or settings. The study was not designed to determine if the skills learned during simulation endured over time after discharge. The sample size was too small to detect a statistically significant change in readmission rates. The simulation used a mannequin representing a five-year-old child, while the median patient age was 11.5 months, which may have reduced the realism of the training. There was no control group; all participants received the full multimodal curriculum, making it difficult to isolate the specific impact of the simulation component alone.
Declared interests
The paper does not report any specific conflicts of interest or funding sources in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that high-fidelity simulation training significantly reduces readmission rates. The study found no statistically significant difference in seven-day readmissions due to a small sample size. The benefits reported are primarily subjective measures of caregiver confidence and perceived learning.