Just-in-Time Orientation of Non-Critical Care Nurses to the Critical Care Environment.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, non-critical care nurses assisted in the provision of care to critically ill patients. Just-in-time education was needed for these nurses to effectively assist in the care of these patients. A 12-hour educational program was offered to non-critical care nurses. During this multi-modal program, instructors delivered information to participants through unique didactic classroom learning, simulation engagement, and hands-on experience in a critical care unit. After completing this innovative program, participants demonstrated a significant improvement in knowledge, confidence, and perception of competence in caring for critically ill patients. Participants were highly satisfied with the program. Implementation of a just-in-time, multi-modal critical care nursing program is an effective method of providing non-critical care nurses with basic levels of skills, knowledge, and competency during a crisis to enable them to assist with providing care to critically ill patients. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2022;53(10):465-472.].

University COVID -19 Surveillance Testing Center: Challenges and Opportunities for Schools of Nursing.

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic became clear, it was evident that higher education schools and Universities, including schools of nursing were facing enormous challenges to create a safe environment for educational instruction to continue. Clinical education in particular was affected as clinical sites were increasingly unable to accommodate student clinical rotations due to crushing volumes and overwhelming care needs of COVID patients. This article outlines the innovative efforts of one university that set up a robust surveillance testing program that required and provided weekly COVID-19 testing of all students, faculty and staff that were on-campus. The testing center is nurse led and nurse managed, providing a clinical experience for over 50 nursing students each semester, allowing them to accrue community clinical hours so that they can progress through their nursing program. Clinical quality and patient experience outcomes are shared, and lessons learned described.

Measuring Special Operations Forces Readiness.

Special Operations Force (SOF) Operators, spouses, and component representatives were asked to describe what readiness looks like to them and what is needed to achieve it. Their views informed a broad and deep dive into the academic and gray literature for believable measures relevant to operational readiness. This commentary is a synthesis of that work and provides recommendations for ways to improve "readying" strategies, practices, and outcomes to better achieve human- based mission performance. The key modifiers of Operator readiness are family, SOF culture and leadership, and time. Recommendations are to measure SOF mission performance to define premission Operator readiness; conceptualize mission readiness in terms of assets and not just deficits; combine experiential wisdom with that gained from the study of in-mission performance and premission readiness data; establish SOF phenotypes for use by all components; address emerging fields (doping, sleep, mental toughness, spiritual readiness, moral injury); and develop a simple readiness index.

Exploring the Concept of Healing Spaces.

Evidence-based design (EBD) research has demonstrated the power of environmental design to support improved patient, family, and staff outcomes and to minimize or avoid harm in healthcare settings. While healthcare has primarily focused on fixing the body, there is a growing recognition that our healthcare system could do more by promoting overall wellness, and this requires expanding the focus to healing. This article explores how we can extend what we know from EBD about health impacts of spatial design to the more elusive goal of healing. By breaking the concept of healing into antecedent components (emotional, psychological, social, behavioral, and functional), this review of the literature presents the existing evidence to identify how healthcare spaces can foster healing. The environmental variables found to directly affect or facilitate one or more dimension of healing were organized into six groups of variables-homelike environment, access to views and nature, light, noise control, barrier-free environment, and room layout. While there is limited scientific research confirming design solutions for creating healing spaces, the literature search revealed relationships that provide a basis for a draft definition. Healing spaces evoke a sense of cohesion of the mind, body, and spirit. They support healing intention and foster healing relationships.

Exploring Inpatients' Experiences of Healing and Healing Spaces: A Mixed Methods Study.

In order to understand a patient's healing experience it is essential to understand the elements that they, the patient, believes contributed to their healing. Previous research has focused on symptom reducers or contributors through environment such as stress. A person's experience of healing happens over time not instantaneous. Therefore, in this study, the interviews with patients happened after forty-eight hours of hospitalization. This mixed methods study describes the experiences of seventeen inpatients from two healthcare systems using a phenomenological approach combined with evidence based design evaluation methods to document the setting. The qualitative data was analyzed first for reoccurring themes then further explored and defined through quantitative environmental observations. The seventeen patients defined healing as "getting better/well." Seventy three statements were recorded about contributors and detractors to healing in the physical environment. Three primary themes emerged from the data as positive influencers of a healing experience: being cared for, being comfortable and experiencing something familiar or like home. These results demonstrate that patients perceive their inpatient healing experience through a supported environment.