Background: Nurses in undergraduate training missed clinical time during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in underdeveloped foundational skills.  A large portion of the current nursing workforce graduated during the pandemic.  A mobile skills and simulation cart could meet the educational needs of nurses, building their confidence and competence to provide safe patient care with a potential impact on retention of nurses within hospitals and the profession. Building on the Ambulatory Clinical Skills Cart that was presented at SimExpo 2022 by Dr. Nassif, Nursing Education leadership at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) decided to adapt and implement a similar cart to our context.

Objective: The purpose of the Mobile Skills and Simulation Cart (MSSC) is to provide education for nursing staff on clinical skills through just in time (JIT) learning, or refresher in-servicing facilitated by a Simulation Nurse Educator (SNE), building on TOH nursing orientations

Description: The MSSC has 2 approaches for delivery: JIT and in-servicing.  With JIT, a unit Nurse Educator (NE) contacts the SNE for a session that is adapted to real time, specific education needs for the unit nurses regarding patient care. The session is delivered that day or within a day of contact. For in-servicing, NEs coordinate with the SNE to deliver sessions based on an organizational needs assessment for the MSSC and interest of the unit nurses.  Each session is tailored to the expressed learning needs of the individual nurses.  The MSSC also functions as preparation for full-scale in-situ simulations delivered by the TOH Simulation Patient Safety Program, which is in alignment with simulation best practices.

Impact:  Preliminary results are very positive and encouraging. In the first 2 weeks of implementation approximately 60 nurses attended 5 sessions with 48 completing the 3-question feedback survey.  The survey assesses satisfaction and what was learned. Nurse satisfaction is rated at 9.9/10 stars. Learnings have been shared that will have a positive impact on patient care.  It is anticipated by December 2023 the MSSC will be able to reach 500 or more nurses addressing their learning needs with a potential positive impact on staff retention.