Tech Tool Identification
The technology tool that could be incorporated into the course is VizHOME or a collection of different houses’ virtual recreations accompanied by patient information for each house. VizHOME serves the purpose of facilitating home visit simulations in care provider education. The tool employs 3D scanning technology to provide realistic and detailed recreations of real environments without offering deanonymized data and enables mock virtual home visits. To utilize VizHOME in the course, it is possible to use one of its 3D home models for exploration as a learning material for students. One of the multi-unit houses (MU1) and data on the patient in a home visit simulation activity can be used within the course’s frame to inform the subsequent graded essay assignment. Incorporating the tool into the course in this specific manner can be conducive to promoting holistic analysis and critical thinking skills pertaining to home-based clients. The educator will evaluate the depth of reflection and argumentation rather than technical skills peculiar to working with VizHOME files. The tool’s potential feasibility and helpfulness stem from three factors. First, its user-friendliness and appropriateness for individual utilization at home are crucial. Second, VizHOME’s home simulations offer thought-provoking cases of patients with multi-dimensional healthcare needs and various comorbid conditions. For instance, the MU1 simulation features a minority patient with musculoskeletal, respiratory, and systemic chronic disorders (Casper et al., 2020). These and other features of the tool make it relevant to the third and the fourth objectives that deal with home-based patient management skills and the exploration of barriers to meeting patient expectations, respectively. Therefore, the tool is anticipated to assist the students in thinking critically with regard to home-based patients and boost expectations analysis skills.
SMART Learning Objectives
The two SMART objectives created for the planned technology-mediated assignment relate to achieving measurable results pertaining to recognizing and meeting the expectations of home-based patients with complex healthcare needs. The first objective focuses on the ability to recognize such expectations on the basis of the patient’s health history and information on this person’s immediate surroundings, access to health-promoting factors at home, and similar factors. The second objective emphasizes the nursing student’s professional imagination and the ability to model encounters with home-based patients by predicting communication difficulties that may arise and hinder the care professional’s success in benefiting the patient.
Activity Description/Instructions
The activity that will instrumentalize the VizHOME tool and integrate it into the course is a virtual visit to a home-based patient followed by writing an individual reflection essay. This slide details the instructions to explain the sequence of actions during the preparatory stage. Using the VizHOME home simulation database, the students will access and download files pertaining to the MU1 environment, which is a multi-unit building occupied by a disabled African-American patient in her 60s. The students will also be instructed on accessing the patient’s information and installing Cloud Compare or Mesh Lab software for processing the files. Following the preparatory stage, the student will proceed with exploration and pay a visit to Jenny, during which he/she will be evaluating the patient’s living conditions, access to supplies and resources linked with her multiple chronic disorders, and other factors that might be relevant to her expectations and needs. Exploration will be unstructured and flexible, enabling students to assess Jenny’s case and construct their own approaches to retrieving expectation-related trends based on patient-specific knowledge. After the exploration phase, the students will be asked to complete a seven-page piece of scholarly writing to share their insights linked with three open-ended questions. First, they will be invited to share and explain five takeaways from the activity that can shed light on expectations that the patient might have based on her living conditions. Next, the paper should cover the same question in relation to Jenny’s health information and medical history. Finally, each student will be instructed to identify potential barriers to addressing Jenny’s expectations with a specific focus on nurse-patient communication. For instance, knowing that Jenny has been diagnosed with anxiety, the student might suggest that the nurse’s inability to make recommendations and interventions clearly structured would threaten mutual understanding (Stonehouse, 2018). The students will be provided with detailed instructions regarding the expected format of the written submission. Specifically, they will be asked to produce a seven-page essay to address the prompt in a well-organized way, with headings for different questions, APA7 citations, and screenshots to prove the completion of the activity and support the discussion of the patient’s expectations. To address question one properly, the students will prepare five screenshots, with one screenshot per finding. They will have to edit each screenshot to circle or highlight the object or objects that their finding or idea pertains to and then insert the screenshots after the paragraphs that discuss these findings.
Evaluation: Facilitating the Desired Outcomes
The tech tool will facilitate the anticipated learning outcomes by exposing student nurses to virtual spaces that imitate home-based patients’ living environments in a detailed way and offer insights into the life of individuals with complex healthcare needs. Observations and consideration given to the patient’s autonomy are central to the effective management of home-based patients’ concerns (Olsen et al., 2019). Students’ experiences with VizHOME and the subsequent writing activity can improve their comprehension of the diversity of patient needs and expectations by modeling home visits that offer practice-oriented information to inform patient management, communication, and recommendations.
Hypothetical Barriers to Integrating the Tool
Although the VizHOME tool and software required to open files and explore 3D houses are free and easy to find, the considerations of usability and accessibility are still linked to hypothetical barriers to the assignment’s successful completion. The virtual visit/essay assignment is to be completed individually, which can be inconvenient given that students’ skills and experiences with such software may vary. To complete the task successfully, each student will have to have a personal computer or a laptop and be able to install the required software and open VizHOME files properly to explore the patient’s surroundings and make adequate conclusions. Any student’s inability to meet these expectations will threaten the tool’s successful integration.
How the Activity Fits into the Course
The proposed activity fits into the course in two different ways, including its thematic proximity to the course’s contents and alignment with the previously identified methods for reaching the objectives. Firstly, similar to the course’s central theme, the activity centers on exploring home-based patient encounters and challenging students to assess patients’ expectations holistically. Second, the fourth strategy for fulfilling the course’s objectives is linked with written submissions, such as reflection essays. The discussed activity utilizes this approach to demonstrating and assessing new knowledge.
The Activity and Learning Objectives for the Course
Finally, the proposed activity supports the course by promoting the students’ ability to achieve the third and the fourth learning objectives specified in the previous stages of course planning. The assignment incorporates the third objective as it challenges the students to reflect on the management of home-based patients due to exploring the patient’s housing conditions and instrumentalizing housing and health history information to derive expectations-related information. Also, it aligns with the fourth objective as the former has directly informed the third question in the prompt.
References
Casper, G., Ponto, K., & Tredinnick, R. (2020). VizHOME virtual home visits: A resource for nurse educators. Web.
Olsen, C. F., Bergland, A., Debesay, J., Bye, A., & Langaas, A. G. (2019). Striking a balance: Health care providers’ experiences with home-based, patient-centered care for older people: A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. Patient Education and Counseling, 102(11), 1991-2000. Web.
Stonehouse, D. (2018). How to identify and support your anxious patient. British Journal of Healthcare Assistants, 12(4), 186-188. Web.
The VizHOME Project. (n.d.a). About the project. Web.
The VizHOME Project. (n.d.b). Data and documentation. Web.
Werner, N. E., Tong, M., Nathan-Roberts, D., Arnott-Smith, C., Tredinnick, R., Ponto, K., Melles, M., & Hoonakker, P. (2020). A sociotechnical systems approach toward tailored design for personal health information management. Patient Experience Journal, 7(1), 75-83. Web.