P4 Skilled and socially inclusive region
4.2. More aligned vocational education and training (VET) programmes in the Central Baltic region
Central Baltic
01.10.2017 - 30.09.2019
€257 713
€199 992
The overall objective of the SimE project is to improve nursing students’ ethical competence by creating three common study courses in order to develop more aligned VET programmes. The courses will be embedded in each partner organisation's curricula, which will result in increased ethical competence among nursing students in the Central Baltic region. Common courses and teaching methods ensure more harmonized education level in the region, and also more harmonized competence level of nurses working in these countries.
Development of the ethical competence of nursing students is done with help of multi-various methods, like simulation and practical training. Simulation environment is a safe and effective way for students to learn and practice complex ethical skills. The patients and health care providers in the Central Baltic region need more nurses that possess equal and ethically competitive nursing care. This can be achieved by building more aligned curricula in nursing education. Improved ethical skills serve the needs of healthcare providers, promote the mobility of the workforce and increase the quality of patient care. One of the project results is a communication platform for future professionals that encourages networking between VET institutions and nurses.
Turun ammattikorkeakoulu Oy
Country: FI
Partner budget: 105.296 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 78.972 EUR ERDF
Latvijas Universitātes Rīgas Medicīnas koledža
Country: LV
Partner budget: 67.068 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 57.007 EUR ERDF
Swedish Stiftelsen Rödakorshemmet/Röda Korsets Högskola
Country: SE
Partner budget: 85.350 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 64.013 EUR ERDF
Achieved results
SimE - ethical competence for nursing students
The SimE project improved nursing students’ ethical competence in Finland, Sweden and Latvia. The main achievement of the project were the three aligned study courses (6 ETCS) on simulation pedagogy for nursing students, and an e-handbook on the course themes. Thus the project increased the share of aligned vocational education training curricula in the region.
The course topics were:
1) Basic Ethics in Health Care (2 ETCs),
2) The Ethical Coffee Room (1 ETC),
3) Simulations in Ethical Issues (3 ETCs).
In addition to providing a general introduction to ethics in health care, the project provides tools for understanding the essential concepts of ethics, moral and norms and exploring different ethical values that are often culture related. This will ease the nursing students to meet patients from different background.
The project courses encourage the students to familiarise with ethical guidelines and articles but also patient care studies. Anonymous online environment is provided for students to discuss with peer student group on student’s own experiences on challenging ethical situations that they face during the clinical practise. Furthermore, the courses provide simulation practises on different ethical scenarios, after which the students give and receive feedback on their ethical activity from the peer students.
Course material was compiled in the e-Handbook with the guidelines how to implement the course.
Website: https://simethics.eu/
The SimE project improved nursing students’ ethical competence in Finland, Sweden and Latvia. The main achievement of the project were the three aligned study courses (6 ETCS) on simulation pedagogy for nursing students, and an e-handbook on the course themes.