Virtual Clinical Simulations in an Online Advanced Health Appraisal Course

• The addition of Digital Clinical Experiences™ into an Advanced Health Appraisal course showed that there was no significant difference in the course grades and integrated performance proficiency scores between the intervention and control groups.
• Integration of the Digital Clinical Experience™ in a graduate-level online learning environment is a feasible, cost-effective strategy for providing an additional means for student skill acquisition and evaluation.
• The use of virtual clinical simulations as a learning and skills assessment strategy needs to be further evaluated in family nurse practitioner students.

BackgroundAcquisition of knowledge and skills by nurse practitioner students before real-life practice is a familiar nursing education challenge.MethodsVirtual clinical simulations (VCSs) using Digital Clinical Experience™ were introduced in an advanced health appraisal course to explore how these VCSs affected students' learning and perception of their simulation experience as a learning strategy in an online course using a quasi-experimental design. Differences for intervention (VCS) and control groups (no VCS) were measured.ResultsNo significant difference was revealed in course grades, integrated performance proficiency scores, or in National League of Nursing simulation scores.ConclusionThe integration of VCSs into current standardized online course content as an adjunctive learning experience warrants additional evaluation.