Welcome to the Virtual Community Clinic Learning Environment (VCCLE) website, which describes an East Carolina University College of Nursing (ECU CON) technology project. The VCCLE is a computer based, distance education tool for training Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) and Adult Nursing Practice (ANP) graduate students. It is the result of collaboration between the college's FNP graduate faculty and the college's special projects technology team.

Overview

The ECU CON was awarded an Advanced Nursing Education Program grant from the Health Services and Resources Administration (HRSA). The grant's purpose is to leverage technology to expand the college's FNP program, and to increase the emphasis on culturally competent care, with which to better meet the needs of minority clients and other high risk populations. The goal is to educate a larger number of nurse practitioners who are committed to providing culturally competent, primary care to high-risk patients

The grant has 3 main objectives:

1. Increase the diversity and number of FNP's practicing in rural, underserved areas of North Carolina
2. Develop a modularized, web-based curriculum that promotes problem-based individualized learning
3. Prepare FNP's who provide high quality care to high risk populations in a culturally competent and sensitive manner

Objective 2 of the grant has a significant technology component, and that is to create and populate prototypical virtual communities and clinics that are accessible to students and faculty through the internet. We have created and placed virtual patients into a community, family, and clinic context, so that students will acquire knowledge of the interpersonal dynamics and variables that influence patient behavior and the decisions people make about their health.

We have created cases to illustrate culturally and ethnically diverse rural virtual patients and communities. Created from composites of North Carolina communities, the residents are a cross section of the entire population of eastern North Carolinians (i.e., those that make their living on the water, cotton farmers, farm laborers, hog farmers, sewing factory workers, poultry process workers, merchants and store keepers, business owners, etc.). Within the communities are clinics which are run by virtual FNPs, and our virtual patients are all community members and have community roles. Over the years we have collected the case studies and have compiled a very rich data base from which to draw.