Heartbeat: Acute medicine study days boost skills and confidence
March 8, 2021
Some people may look back on 2020 and remember it as January, February, COVID, December. The truth is, however, as challenging as the past year has been, it has allowed individuals and teams to innovate, continue to learn and grow whilst never taking their focus off delivering the best patient care.
One such team that has been investing in continuous learning throughout the pandemic has been our acute medicine team. We caught up with Alicia Parker, Lead Professional Development Nurse – Acute Medicine to find out more.
Alicia told us: “I work within acute medicine, and one of the things we have worked on delivering throughout 2020 has been our study days. Suitable for all grades, the days include guests from different specialties to help broaden our knowledge of a variety of topics.
“We’ve been running two study days throughout the year – our acute medicine safety study day and our acute medicine clinical skills study days, both of which have been well attended and received.
“We’ve completed four sessions of our acute medicine safety study day. A total of 83 healthcare professionals attended throughout October and November. The morning session is kindly hosted by Sabina Price- Hickman, Erica Podhorodecki-Castle and Tracy Mansell. They discuss mental capacity acts, safeguarding, deprivation of liberty, falls prevention and what we can do within acute medicine to ensure that the holistic mental health needs of every patient is assessed on every admission.
“The afternoon session is run by Laura Worsey and me. It focuses on tissue viability, specifically pressure ulcers and moisture associated skin damage. We do this by teaching the theory behind developing skin damage, and this then flows into an interactive session with learning stations. For example, one area looks at a skin-matching game. We provide diagrams and pictures of pressure sores, descriptions and the teams have to categorise these.”
Alicia added: “We have another two safety study dates booked for January and February 2021. We’re aiming to teach another 53 healthcare professionals and keep going from there. People have found the sessions beneficial so far, and feedback has been positive with colleagues citing how it has helped them improve the patient experience.”
As well as this, Alicia and the team have also been running acute medicine clinical skills days. She told us: “We have run three sessions to date with 51 qualified nurses. This day looks at how to interpret blood gases, how to insert NG tubes, how to take blood cultures, tracheostomy/laryngectomy care and how to verify an expected death.
“This study day helps nurses to build confidence in skills that they may already have or to learn a completely new skill that enhances patient care within acute medicine.”