About
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of the United States’ oldest public universities, having served students since 1795.
UNC’s School of Nursing recently began exploring potential use cases for innovative AI simulation technology. As part of this trial, they decided to explore how Bodyswaps could assist with human skills training.
Goals
- Enhance communication and affective skills training for nursing students
- Explore the effectiveness of VR & AI technologies to evaluate their inclusion in the curriculum on an ongoing basis
Deployment
Focused trial
Elizabeth and her team conducted a trial of Bodyswaps with 112 Bachelor of Science in Nursing students, with the vast majority feeling “somewhat” or “extremely” satisfied with its effectiveness.Choice of platform
Students were given the choice on how to access Bodyswaps: via VR headsets, iPads, or laptops. This allowed them to choose the device that was most comfortable for them, which was key when the majority of students were unfamiliar with VR headsets.Results
After one session of our Navigating Angry Conversations module, learners were asked to rate their confidence levels (1-5) on different skills, before and after training. These graphs compare the percentage of learners who felt confident (score of 4 or higher).
Students really appreciated the use of this type of simulation for communication skills training because of the psychological safety it offered them, regardless of the device they chose to use.
The more options we have in our simulation toolbox, the more prepared our nursing students are going to be for the nursing profession.
Elizabeth Stone
Advice
- Before trialing it students, trial it yourself and trial it with your peers; get feedback to ensure the quality and relevance of the simulation.
- When introducing simulation sessions, it’s key to include an expert- or faculty-led debrief, in person when possible.
- Ensuring that headsets fit properly and including breaks from VR are key to preventing motion sickness, headache, and eye strain when using a VR headset
Future Plans
Elizabeth and the team will be integrating AI-powered and VR simulations into their prelicensure nursing curriculum to help support program growth and address the nursing workforce shortage.They also aim to identify ways they can use VR simulations to map to AACN competencies via the individualized analytics.
To support these aims, they’re looking to increase faculty scholarship related to simulation and VR simulation specifically.
In March, Elizabeth was a guest speaker on our webinar The Nurses vs AI - check this out here.