Strategy Submission

Low fidelity task trainers are a cost-effective tool to teach skills. However, practicing skills on task trainers focuses learner attention on the task to the exclusion of the other aspects of patient-centered care. It is difficult for faculty to integrate experiences such as talking to the patient, or maintaining patient dignity while doing tasks, when the task trainer is a disconnected body part. Enhancing task trainers to resemble simulated patients reminds learners about the holistic nature of care while practicing physical assessment skills. Faculty facilitating the simulation skills lab for pelvic, breast, and pregnancy exams for advanced practice nursing students have used creative and inexpensive materials to enhance task trainers and integrate the skills of patient-centered care into physical assessment practice. Task trainers were humanized with inexpensive materials to emphasize holistic care. Wig heads in various skin tones were purchased and outfitted with accessories such as hair, scarves, hats, glasses, and earrings. Pillows, gowns, and drape sheets were used to set the task trainers up as simulated patients. Name labels were used for the task trainers. During physical assessment skill practice, learners were expected to address the simulated patients by name and to explain the maneuvers they were performing, as if they were speaking to a patient. Using gowns and drape sheets helped learners practice maintaining the dignity of patients during exams. Faculty were able to discuss the principles of trauma-informed care during assessment practice with concrete examples of how a practitioner would perform an assessment on a patient who was wearing their own clothing rather than a hospital gown. Pictures of materials used and an example of an enhanced task trainer are attached.