Nurse Residency Programming Highlights New ENA Initiative and Benefits of HIRAID

With the launch of the Emergency Nurse Residency Program this spring, ENA has an important new resource to help orient novice nurses to the emergency department. This renewed focus will be featured at Emergency Nursing 2022.

A one-hour “Residency Pilot Panel” on Oct. 1 will detail how participants in the residency program will develop critical-thinking and decision-making skills while learning about the dynamics of sociocultural acclimation in the ED.

Two additional sessions will discuss an important component of the ENRP curriculum: How the use of HIRAID — history, identify red flags, assessment, interventions and diagnostics — as an assessment tool impacts emergency care. HIRAID also incorporates reassessment and communication.

The Sept. 30 pre-conference session “HIRAID Emergency Nursing Framework: Train the Trainer” will explain how to use HIRAID. Separate registration is required for this pre-session experience. On Oct. 2, “Safer, Better Emergency Nursing Care with HIRAID: A Proven, Scalable Emergency Nursing Framework” will review the data supporting its use. All listings are in Mountain time:

HIRAID Emergency Nursing Framework: Train the Trainer

Sept. 30 — 1:30-5:30 p.m.
Colorado Convention Center, Rooms 201-203

HIRAID, a tool to assess a patient post-triage, is included in the residency program curriculum and is the focus of the pre-conference train-the-trainer session. An international faculty of emergency nursing leaders, including some of the Australian researchers who developed the tool, will lead this practical workshop.

“As you’re doing your physical assessment, HIRAID is your approach to the patient, and then reassessment and communication are happening continuously,” said ENA Senior Manager of Education Program Development Monica Escalante Kolbuk. “It’s a validated framework. It gives the nurses a general standardized way to assess and manage patients in varying degrees of illness. You can use this approach on anyone.”

Emergency nurses have been using HIRAID for years, and as more patient outcomes can be tied to this process, the methodology has been refined by researchers from Australia, she said.

Those Australian research partners tested HIRAID in simulated experiences and with live patients.

“They learned that the use of HIRAID is associated with a reduction in clinical deterioration related to emergency care by enhancing nursing practice through increased escalation of patient deterioration. So, they’ve seen great results that it improves emergency care by helping to reduce treatment delays and improve escalation of clinical deterioration of patients, thus reducing costs associated with resources consumed from patient deterioration episodes,” Kolbuk explained.

Participants in the session will learn how to implement HIRAD in their own EDs through interactive, facilitated activities including patient scenarios and discussions.

Residency Pilot Panel

Oct. 1 — 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Colorado Convention Center, Rooms 103-105

Kolbuk will provide an overview of the residency program before turning the floor over to a panel of participants from ENA’s original 18-week pilot program.

“Educators, a preceptor and a resident who went through the program will all be there to talk about their residency pilot experiences and field questions,” Kolbuk said.

She recommends the session for hospital decision-makers considering purchasing the ENRP, as panelists describe the pros and cons of the program.

The ENRP was designed as a critical-thinking training tool that helps improve ED staff retention and employee satisfaction while reducing the costs associated with recruitment and onboarding new staff.

Safer, Better Emergency Nursing Care with HIRAID: A Proven, Scalable Emergency Nursing Framework

Oct. 2 — 8:45-9:30 a.m.
Colorado Convention Center, Rooms 205-207

Researchers presenting this session will discuss the data demonstrating how HIRAID improves the safety and quality of emergency care to maximize patient and health service outcomes in the ED.

The presenters will discuss the research they’ve done on HIRAID, their framework and how it is being implemented in Australia.