Palliative Care in Long-term Care : A Virtual Serious Game

Abstract

To address the educational needs of undergraduate nursing students in Ontario, we have developed a freely available, open-access virtual serious game (VSG) to teach palliative care geared for the elderly at end-of-life in long-term care (LTC).

There is a lack of palliative care experiences for nursing students during their undergraduate studies in the LTC sector; moreover, palliative care education is not highly emphasized and is inconsistent across nursing programs. The open-access VSG closes this gap and champion diversity and inclusivity while embracing graduate nursing students and Registered Nurses (RNs) in LTC input to co-design the VSG, including unconscious bias and cultural competence training.

This project supports eCampus and York University’s vision for 'made in Ontario' digital tools for virtual learning, supportive education for labour market re-skilling, lifelong learning, and global outreach.