The Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN) is pleased to announce a new project entitled Essential COVID-19 Skills for Graduating and New Nurses. This project has been funded by Health Canada.

Registered nurses (RNs) are frontline responders in the COVID-19 health crisis and critical to the effective delivery of health care services. It is essential that nurses have education on clinical situations and skills related to COVID-19, in order to provide the best possible care for COVID-19 patients and be able to protect themselves from the risk of infection.

In response to this need, CASN is creating a virtual simulation series that will address areas of care directly related to COVID-19. The creation of the virtual simulations will be led by Dr. Jane Tyerman of the University of Ottawa and Dr. Marian Luctkar-Flude of Queen’s University, who have developed over 30 user-friendly, evidence-based virtual simulations for nurses. Dr. Lucktar-Flude and Dr. Tyerman are Co-Presidents of the Canadian Alliance of Nursing Educators using Simulation and developed and teach CASN’s Canadian Certified Simulation Nurse Educator program. CASN is collaborating with Simulation Canada to ensure the simulation series will be delivered nationally to nurses and other health professionals in practice settings.

Virtual simulations are interactive, experiential learning opportunities that are easily scalable and accessible by distance for self-learning. The CASN simulations will be freely available in both official languages.

The simulation series is designed for nurses who have recently graduated or are nearing graduation, given that access to clinical experiences has been disrupted by the pandemic. They are also intended for faculty to use in teaching, and RNs in practice, particularly those who are who are re-registering to work on the frontlines or are shifting into acute areas as a result of the pandemic.