Abstract:

The virtual hospital is an on-line construction using ICTE (Information and Communication Technologies for Education) allowing a learner in nursing to get in contact with multiple virtual patients. Contrary to a classic approach by case studies, the learner by this mean has access –as in a real hospital situation –to the complex, not sorted information, presented in different ways (audio, photo, video …).
All those components will be presented in the forms closest to the reality of professional life and will include among others a nursing folder, a medical folder, laboratory results, different protocols as well as accesses to the patient’s room, to the oral nursing report, to the paramedical team, …
In this project, ICT tools tend to profoundly improve and complete actual training tools, specifically for the purposes of acquisition of clinical judgement competences and professional communication skills of future nurses, and further development of these competences in the framework of Life Long Learning (LLL).
These tendencies of performance emerge directly from the patients and practical experience and, indirectly, from multiple legislation procedures that assert nurses to show and to prove the validity of their medical care, the specificity of their contribution and their participation in the health system. So, the development of clinical judgement competencies and professional communication skills becomes essential for both students and professionals. The Project is developed in partnership with:
Institutions of Education of Nursing and Health of the following countries: Belgium, Portugal, Italy, France and Bulgaria.
The promoter of the Project is the Haute École Mosane d´Enseignement Supérieur - HEMES of Liège, the coordinator is the Haute École Galilée - ISSIG (Institut Supérieur de Soins Infirmiers Galilée) and in Portugal the partner is the Superior School of Nursing of Coimbra.
The duration is of 24 months elapsing of 2008 the 2010, with financing of the European Commission in the scope of the Program Leonardo da Vinci.

Keywords:

virtual hospital, case studies, reference competencies, clinical judgment and written.