Marilyn Oermann, Thelma M. Ingles Professor of Nursing, was celebrated at the National League for Nursing (NLN) Education Summit: Leading and Teaching Beyond Resilience for her integral role in the CPR studies done at Duke, which are now being used as the basis for Resuscitation Quality Improvement (RQI) being used in hospitals for CPR training. NLN and Laerdal Medical are partnering to support RQI program adoption by nursing programs at higher education institutions to help prepare future nursing professionals to respond to cardiac arrest events competently and confidently. 

Oermann is also featured in a video Laerdal/RQI/American Heart Association developed and released at the convention to promote the program. The event occurred from September 23 to 25 near Washington, D.C.

More information on the program can be found in the following press release from NLN. 

Press Release 

The National League for Nursing (NLN), the premier professional organization for nurse faculty and leaders in nursing education, and its partner Laerdal Medical announce a new partnership to help advance transformation of the standard of resuscitation care for cardiac arrest.

The organizations are committed to supporting Resuscitation Quality Improvement® (RQI®) program adoption by nursing programs at higher education institutions to help prepare future nursing professionals to respond to cardiac arrest events competently and confidently — leading to improvement in survival rates. It is estimated that more than 150,000 students graduate each year from nursing programs at U.S. colleges and universities.

RQI’s innovative, digital approach helps learners achieve sustained mastery of high-quality CPR skills and verified competence through short, quarterly practice and review sessions. The program is co-developed by Laerdal Medical, one of the world leaders in medical simulation and resuscitation training, and the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization dedicated to a world of longer, healthier lives.

This week’s NLN 2021 Education Summit, held near Washington, D.C., is the ideal forum to introduce the League’s latest professional collaboration to advance excellence in nursing education to heighten patient safety and health outcomes globally. The formal announcement was made today during the Summit’s opening session, and a presentation will be delivered at a special luncheon for deans and directors of schools of nursing on Friday.

“I am excited to announce the League’s shared commitment with Laerdal Medical and RQI Partners to prepare this and future generations of nurses to maximize lifesaving resuscitation competence,” said NLN President and CEO Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN. “Collectively, we aim to equip the NLN’s faculty members and member schools with a highly reliable, progressive quality program to fulfill our mission to advance the health of the nation and the global community, achieve excellence in nursing education and help save more lives.”

The “low-dose, high-frequency” methodology was first confirmed by seminal multi-site studies pioneered by nurse educator-scholars Marilyn Oermann, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN, Professor of Nursing at Duke University School of Nursing, and Suzan Kardong-Edgren, PhD, RN, ANEF, CHSE, FSSH, FAAN, Associate Professor at MGH Institute of Health Professions. Their investigations documented the effectiveness of quarterly practice to improve nurse performance of high-quality, lifesaving CPR, optimize knowledge retention, and eradicate CPR skills decay. The model, utilizing self-directed CPR skills practice on manikins with high-fidelity feedback, helped transform pre-licensure instruction in Basic Life Support (BLS), Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ALS), and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), as well as CPR competence among health care providers.

The Oermann-Edgren study provided key evidence, which led to Laerdal Medical and the American Heart Association developing and launching RQI in 2015; calling for a new standard of care in 2018 by shifting resuscitation practice from compliance to verified CPR competence for health care professionals; creating the current RQI simulation solutions and e-Learning platforms for sustainable quality improvement in cardiac arrest resuscitation; and forming RQI Partners to accelerate and influence program adoption across the health care industry.

“More than a decade ago, the National League for Nursing and Laerdal provided initial funding for landmark studies that demonstrated the superiority of the ‘low-dose, high-frequency’ model and called on nursing schools to innovate accordingly,” said NLN Chair Dr. Patricia S. Yoder-Wise, RN, EdD, NEA-BC, ANEF, FAONL, FAAN, Professor and Dean Emerita at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and President of The Wise Group. “We will encourage nursing education programs to integrate these research-based findings in resuscitation science into CPR education to help students demonstrate and maintain competence. Nursing students who participate in the RQI program now start on a path to continuous quality improvement learning and will be better prepared to transition to clinical practice.” 

RQI is a proven resuscitation quality improvement program currently used by more than 1 million health care professionals nationwide and outside the U.S. The program’s courses measure and verify competence through self-directed, competence-based, simulation mastery learning and performance provided through cognitive and hands-on CPR quality improvement sessions. Rooted in the True Adaptive™ learning design, which leverages artificial intelligence, courses afford personalized instruction tailored to and driven by individual needs, knowledge levels, actions and performance.

“This new collaboration, born from a nearly 20-year, trusted relationship between Laerdal and the National League for Nursing, is a significant milestone in our journey,” said Alf-Christian Dybdahl, Laerdal Medical Chief Executive Officer. “We’ve traveled from game-changing studies to a resuscitation quality improvement solution that will help the League uphold its commitment to members to offer innovative products and dynamic experiences tailored to learners, faculty and administrators’ unique needs. We look forward to uniting with the League to further how faculty members teach, and our future nursing professionals learn, and ultimately, help save lives.”

Dr. Oermann’s latest study, published this year in the Journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, further confirmed that refreshing CPR skills quarterly, compared to a six-month timeframe, leads to improved compression and ventilation scores — the two elements most critical to cardiac arrest survival.

“The studies for which Dr. Oermann continues to advocate today convincingly articulate the effectiveness of more frequent learning experiences to master high-quality CPR,” said John Meiners, American Heart Association Chief of Mission-Aligned Businesses and Healthcare Solutions. “We’re excited to explore how nursing education programs in our nation’s colleges and universities can embrace RQI to offer students a new, unique pathway to verified CPR competence and position them for greater lifesaving potential.”

For more information about the new partnership and RQI, visit the dedicated website at CPRNursingED.org.