London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) partnered with the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development to launch the Skills Development Fund Project BETTY (Bringing Education and Technology To You). The collaborative project between CSTAR and Nursing Professional Practice launched in June 2023. The mobile point-of-care simulation program was designed to provide skills-based training to healthcare professionals using task trainers, as well as interprofessional team training through in situ simulation.
To determine the areas of focus that would have the most impact, a needs assessment was conducted, which highlighted the need to focus on code blue response, safe vascular access, urinary catheter best practices, safe patient handling/fall prevention, early mobilization, and patient assessment/response to deteriorating patients. These topics have been introduced via a rotating schedule since the launch of the project. It is expected that additional topics will be identified and included. It is expected that providing access to training that is tied to current organizational issues, such as increase in patient falls and staff injuries related to patient handling, will demonstrate to our staff that we are willing to invest in their well-being and safety and improve our retention of nursing staff.
The project focused on improving the skills of 1500 nurses, personal support workers and nursing students, and had a positive impact on other members of the health care team. Project BETTY is unique because it provided mobile training to learners in their work environment. This meant that learners could access the training easily, without the need to call in replacement staff on a nonclinical day, which saved costs related to overtime or backfilling clinicians' schedules who would otherwise be offsite for training.
Final Project Utilization
