Responding to COVID-19: Developing a Virtual "On-Campus" Experience for Adult-Geriatric Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Students.

Buterakos, Roxanne; Keiser, Megan M

BACKGROUND The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic prevented in-person activities at colleges and universities in the spring/summer 2020 semester. Therefore, adult-geriatric acute care nurse practitioner students were unable to have on-campus clinical experiences. METHOD An innovative virtual experience was developed, using synchronous platforms for lectures and a virtual patient (VP) encounter. RESULTS Eight students participated in the experience, composed of three interactive lectures and a VP encounter. Students spent an average of 24.88 minutes (range = 20.88 to 35.48) with the VP, followed by debriefing. Students who became frustrated with the technology were identified as those who did not perform the practice session within the virtual platform. CONCLUSION Faculty determined that the virtual experience was a success. They were able to evaluate students' critical thinking and clinical decision-making. Next steps include refinement of the avatar platform as well as forcing completion of a practice session prior to the actual synchronous graded activity. [J Nurs Educ. 2021;60(10):586-589.].