NURS FPX 6112 Assessment 4 Implementation Plan for a New Simulation Product

Implementation Plan for a New Simulation Product

Slide 1: Hello, I am ___________. The presentation identifies Sentinel U as an online simulation system that assists nursing students in developing their clinical judgement in areas such as physical examination, pharmacology, and pathophysiology. My proposal includes a needs analysis, a phased integration plan within the foundation courses, and the establishment of measurable outputs. Guided by evidence-based literature, the presentation seeks to increase students’ ability and confidence through the use of standardized virtual patient cases. Widespread adoption of Sentinel U will improve nursing education by innovatively addressing the gaps in the existing clinical training methods.

Slide 2

Description of Technology

Sentinel U is a nursing education innovation that uses highly complex, real-world clinical practice virtual patient cases to improve students’ clinical reasoning and judgment. It combines the three major elements of nursing practice- physical assessment, pharmacology, and pathophysiology- into several engaging case studies. Students have the opportunity to place a virtual patient on a case, take a health history, assess the symptoms, and interpret diagnostic data in order to formulate a diagnosis and intervention (Ahn & Jeong, 2025). The self-directed learning nature of the software, along with immediate, constructive feedback, aids an individual in understanding the rationale of clinical judgment and the outcome of the decision. Sentinel U is an excellent resource for the pre-clinical and early clinical practice stage; students are methodically introduced to extensive patient conditions before coming in contact with actual patients.

The simulation contains various scenarios for medical-surgical, pediatric, maternal-child, and mental health nursing. For example, a student may encounter a virtual patient with hypertension and peripheral neuropathy. The student must assess blood pressure and track the symptoms of neuropathy and decide if adjustments to the patient’s medications are warranted based on pharmacology. Modules of Nursing, Advanced Health Assessment, and Pharmacology for Nurses may incorporate Sentinel U modules to enhance theoretical concepts through practical application, as supported by Best et al. (2021). Being cloud-based, it can easily be incorporated into hybrid and fully online programs. Modules can be adapted to suit specific academic and clinical training situations.

Slide 3

Filling the Gap in Education

A recent needs analysis identified a significant lack of student confidence when applying their theoretical knowledge of pathophysiology, physical assessment, and pharmacology to clinical scenarios. Many students find it challenging to associate the disease process with the appropriate intervention due to a lack of practice opportunities and wide variation in clinical placements (Panda et al., 2021). Furthermore, instructors have a hard time delivering individualized feedback during high-fidelity manikin-based simulations as a result of time and resource constraints. Sentinel U meets this need by offering a safe and reliable method for students to practice peripheral clinical problem solving, without a physical simulation laboratory or clinical site.

Through Sentinel U, students analyze patient cases that require the integration of multiple skills. For instance, when students treat diabetic ketoacidosis in one of the virtual patients, they analyze various lab data to determine the patient’s degree of respiratory ketoacidosis, determine appropriate insulin dosage, and analyze other factors like the patient’s comorbidities and drug allergies/interactions (Mahou et al., 2023). Students learn how to apply the theory they learn in the classroom to the practical domain. Integrating this kind of active learning in the classroom enhances students’ confidence when treating actual patients.

Slide 4

Needs Assessment

Surveys, focus groups, and analysis of performance data were used to assess needs with 120 nursing students and 15 faculty members. The analysis showed a number of problems with current instruction. Over two-thirds of students indicated they were unable to perform detailed, autonomous, extensive physical examinations. Additionally, 65% indicated the inability to apply the principles of pharmacology to the modification of patient scenarios. Limited resources and staff forced faculty members to conduct high-fidelity manikin training once a semester. Each student received a single session. The remaining 70% of faculty members indicated that the clinical rotations began with students demonstrating limited clinical reasoning. This led to an increase in the students’ anxiety and reduced the effectiveness of their learning. Compared to the average score of 85% for the recall of fundamental knowledge in course examinations, it was noted that students earned lower average exam scores, 68% and 72%, for the integration of pathophysiology and the application of pharmacology. This clearly indicates a gap between instruction and application. More appropriate, stable, and interactive educational tools could reduce this gap and stimulate the development of advanced thinking and learning.

Slide 5

Necessity and Potential Impact of Sentinel U

Being introduced to close the gaps it addresses, flexibility and the ability to integrate and repeat steps of clinical decision-making drive the development of Sentinel U. Compared to High-Fidelity Manikins, which require a hefty investment of time and resources, Sentinel U can be accessed remotely and, therefore, allows learners to access simulations at any convenient time and as many times as they like (Abulfaraj et al., 2021). Repeated exposure to Sentinel U builds advanced knowledge of the course and impact of illness, the cues of assessment, and the role of different interventions. Many Benefits are expected, most notably improved readiness of students to undertake clinical rotations and the development of critical thinking and of integrated knowledge across professions. Evidence of the benefits of virtual reality and its impact on the recall of knowledge and the development of clinical judgment is extensive; Sałacińska et al. (2025) describe an increase in the diagnostic accuracy of students who were subjected to virtual reality versus students who only experienced traditional lectures. Sentinel U allows a curriculum to standardize the learning experience of all students, reduce the variation in clinical preparedness of students, and ensure the attainment of core competencies of students before they progress to advanced clinical practice.

Slide 6

Integration Strategy

For a smooth incorporation of Sentinel U in current nursing courses, we will adopt a phased approach and implement Sentinel U in three key courses: Fundamentals of Nursing, Pathophysiology for Practicing Nurses, and Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Each module in the three courses will contain at least two or three Sentinel U modules. In Pathophysiology, we expect a heart failure module that positions students in a simulation to interpret changes in vital signs, understand compensatory mechanisms, and predict problems and complications. In this instance, faculty will use the modules for preparation for clinical practice or for practice after a lecture. The Sentinel U modules will be integrated into the instructional plan. Integration will occur through the institution’s LMS. This will allow faculty to monitor students’ progress, access performance analytics, and evaluate students on the completion of the checklist items and the correctness of the decisions as identified in the study by Oguguo et al. (2020). Sentinel U’s teacher dashboard helps educators monitor and remediate frequent errors. We anticipate a similar level of achievement of learning outcomes through virtual and in-person modalities through coordinated efforts of nursing instructors and simulation laboratory coordinators.

Slide 7

Staff Training and User Preparation

Training sessions led by Sentinel U will be conducted over two weeks and will consist of live virtual classes, access to a special support portal, and practice sessions using pilot cases. After the training, staff will be able to assign various simulation exercises, analyze student performance reports, and conduct debriefs. The lead instructors will also use the ‘train the trainer’ approach and will subsequently support their colleagues from each unit as per Wisshak et al. (2025). During orientation week, students will watch an instructional video, go on a tour of a basic simulation, and practice a ‘no stakes’ version of the simulation. Technical support staff will also be present to help with any login difficulties students may have, as well as any compatibility issues students may have with their devices. To promote accessibility, loaner laptops and wireless hotspots will be given to students without reliable technology. This is in accordance with the ADA and to promote digital inclusion.

Slide 8

Benefits and Enhancements

Sentinel U helps students understand physical examination, pathophysiology, and pharmacology in a way that prepares them to tackle real-world issues. In the practice of physical examination, learners must be able to rank their findings relative to history and labs (Kinyon et al., 2021). Even without haptic feedback, students must interpret data and formulate hypotheses. Progressive pathophysiology shows students how prolonged uncontrolled hypertension can ultimately lead to end-organ failure and the ensuing chronic care issues. Within pharmacology, Sentinel U focuses on the context of the structures, and an example of this is the practice of dealing with the sequencing of a patient’s warfarin therapy. Here, students must assess the risk, balance the use of reversal agents, and interact with the team in a safe and responsible manner. The focus of the platform on causation and effect integrates these areas in an evidentiary basis, helping students to make integrated, system-wide decisions.

Slide 9

Evidence-based Support and Case Studies

Numerous studies have shown that tools like Sentinel U strengthen educational outcomes and are effective in virtually all of their uses. As shown in Burnett and Goldhaber-Fiebert (2024), participants in virtual simulations improved by 30%, and users in the control groups did not. Likewise, virtual simulations improved diagnostic reasoning by 25% in another study by Cant and Ryan (2022). Other studies, like Sałacińska et al. (2025), have compared virtual and traditional simulations and reported that users of virtual methods had significantly higher critical thinking scores and were better at identifying more subtle changes in a patient’s condition. In one case study, a learner initially confused the treatment of virtual sepsis with dehydration. Following feedback and a guided reflection, the learner was subsequently able to identify and treat sepsis and the inflammatory response in subsequent cases. This application of Sentinel U shows that the program is able to promote and nurture metacognition and self-correction, skills essential for the self-critique of clinical practice.

Slide 10

Evaluation Metrics

Several methods will be used to evaluate the integration of Sentinel U. The first short-term metrics will be students’ completion of checklists, results from pre- and post-simulation assessments, and faculty assessments of students’ clinical judgment during debriefing. The LMS and Sentinel U analytics will be used to assess completion times, time on task, module errors and decisions, and engagement. Engagement will be assessed using surveys. These surveys will include 5-point Likert scales with items assessing students’ perceptions of usefulness and satisfaction with the resource, and students’ confidence (Buntins et al., 2021). Long-term success will be determined using benchmarking of NCLEX-style assessment, evaluation scores from clinical rotations, and scores from Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). Improvements in clinical reasoning and application will be evaluated against the performance of students in the comparison group from the previous academic year (prior to implementation).

Slide 11

Remediation and Continuous Improvement

Students who continue to struggle to perform well during simulation will be offered a remediation plan. Those students who score less than 75% on any Sentinel U module will be required to attend a guided review session and a re-simulation. A reflective journal will describe the student’s new decisions. The staff will collect and evaluate student data in order to determine which of the most common errors are incorrect and therefore will be addressed during remedial small group sessions. Every two years, program-level assessments will be conducted. These assessments will involve stakeholder feedback and will allow the staff to modify the modules and their order of instruction. This process of Continuous Quality Improvement will allow the staff to maintain the technology resources current as dictated by accreditation and Changes in Clinical Practice.

Slide 12

Budget and Resources

Total costs for implementation of Sentinel U over three years will be approximately $28,000 with a site-wide license for 500 students costing $18,000, faculty training costing $3,000, integration of technical support costing $2,000, and student orientation materials costing $1,000. Funds will also be requested to cover the cost of loaner equipment and the cost of internet access for underprivileged students, costing $4,000. Funding for this project will be requested from the institution’s Innovation in Teaching Grant as well as the nursing program’s yearly technology fund. Openness and sustainability will be prioritized via quarterly budget reviews. Expenses will be charged through the Office of Academic Affairs.

Slide 13

Timeline

The expected timeline for implementation is 8 months, from approval in September 2025 to integration by April 2026. Key steps in this implementation timeline include signing the vendor contract in October 2025, faculty training in November and December 2025, student orientation in January 2026, launch of the pilot in the Fundamentals of Nursing course in February 2026, launch of the product to additional courses in March 2026, and deployment with an evaluation in April 2026. It is anticipated that faculty resistance to the implementation is the greatest risk, along with other technical challenges. These will be mitigated by engagement of champions and IT support, as well as rewards for participation. The study by Price and Regehr (2022) will be the basis for determining the rewards. This will ensure participation of employees. Updates and communication to stakeholders will be given in

Slide

Conclusion

Using Sentinel U online simulation in nursing education prepares students in addressing the challenges of modern-day patient care. This online program provides opportunities for students to develop cognitive skills and decision-making. This online program offers solutions to limitations in clinical judgment, physical clinical examination, and pharmacological knowledge and is easily accessible and scalable. This program integrates well with the currently implemented high-fidelity simulations and improves overall education. The use of this program ensures that nursing graduates possess both knowledge and the skills to address real clinical problems.

Slide 15

Q&A

Q: How does Sentinel U compare to high-fidelity manikins in teaching physical assessment? 

Q: What if students lack reliable internet or devices? 

Q: Can Sentinel U be used for remediation? 

Q: How will faculty workload be managed with added simulation assignments?