At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing students signed up for the Perioperative Elective at the University of Houston were unsure if the class was going to go on. They waited patiently while the administration were busy working to understand the impact across the board for their students as well as the faculty for all the classes being offered.

The pandemic overshadowed everyone’s plans and the PeriopSim team were working feverishly to understand the education shifts. The immediate and most pressing need that was uncovered was that Nursing Schools needed a solution when clinical placements across the US were postponed due to a shortage of PPE and massive decrease in elective cases. The team at PeriopSim understood that Instructors for Nursing Programs has to take their curriculums online and keep the students engaged while they wait out the healthcare storm. Once a solution had been decided, all efforts were applied towards solving that problem and Angela was able to reconnect with Roberto, the Clinical Learning Nurse Staff and Danielle, the Assistant Clinical Professor, to see if the solution would fit the needs of the Perioperative class.

As a result of the combined efforts from the PeriopSim team and the University of Houston faculty, PeriopSim was deployed to 38 students taking the Perioperative Elective. Over the course of 2 weeks the students did nearly 700 Experience Hours. Below are a sample of what the students said about PeriopSim:

“It was great to see multiple names for instruments much like what happens at real hospitals. Seeing the surgery while also participating meant that I could really feel what it would be like."

Jasmine K, Perioperative Elective Student, University of Houston 

“It felt very realistic, the images were clear and it was great to get used to what it would be like to get comfortable with a layout. The system encouraged improving your score which made me work harder.”

Lumina, Perioperative Elective Student, University of Houston 

Fast forward to almost a year later, Danielle Quintana is still using PeriopSim for the Perioperative Elective class. In the learner evaluations, her students said that they love PeriopSim and on average, rated an impressive 4.8/5. To read the full story on how the University of Houston started out with PeriopSim, click here.