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Welcome to COVID-19: Effective Nursing in Times of Crisis.

We are excited to work with you in discussing how nursing can respond to the challenges posed by low resources and high societal uncertainty in the wake of COVID-19. This course, delivered by the FutureLearn platform and led by a global learning community, will assist you in not just obtaining information, but interpreting, synthesizing and reflecting on key issues in the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are developing this course in real time with real experts, capturing their reflections as they continue to work on the frontline. We are also preparing this course in real time in a fluid pandemic where information is changing day by day.

Patricia Davidson

I will be your Lead Educator and will guide you through this course. In my role as Dean and Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, I’m deeply committed to supporting and mentoring the next generation of health professionals. You can find out more about me from my FutureLearn profile, and choose to ‘Follow’ me to share questions and advice on the course.

Throughout this course, we will journey with Sherry Chen, a nurse who answered the call to return to her home in New Jersey to assist in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to address the course objectives we have presented a range of resources and learning from leaders in the field to help you in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic:

• Dr. Jason Farley, an expert from Johns Hopkins University in infectious diseases
• Nurses Kaci Hickox, Nadia Andrade, and Deborah Wilson. All are nurses who have devoted their careers to helping in emergency situations. Each of them have worked for Médecins sans Frontières in a range of settings, dealing with epidemics from measles, cholera and Ebola and working in areas such as South Sudan, Syria, Liberia and Chechnya
• Kevin Ousman is leading the response in the Democratic Republic of Congo to address the Ebola crisis, and was personally challenged in these exceptional situations by COVID-19
• Dr Nancy Reynolds, Associate Dean for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. Dr Reynolds outlines how the COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting serious deficiencies in health systems
• Cynda Rushton will talk to us about the importance of the code of ethics in our professional practice, and also the need to take care of ourselves in these challenging situations.

We’re also exceptionally proud to partner with JHPIEGO, the Johns Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics, in this course. They are highly experienced in working with challenging situations in low-resource settings. You will hear an insightful interview with Leslie Mancuso and Peter Johnson. As I have worked with each of these experts, hearing their stories I’ve been incredibly impressed with them as individuals, with their passion and commitment to nursing and the individuals, families and communities that they serve.

Your learning

Each week of this course is centred around learning outcomes: statements which express what it is you will be better able to do by the end of the course. They are a useful way of checking on how you’re progressing.

The course covers the following learning outcomes:

• Identify key characteristics of COVID-19 and their effect on vulnerable populations
• Evaluate approaches to strengthening health systems
• Reflect on the impact of public health crises in your context
• Describe the characteristics of effective healthcare interventions
• Discuss the applications of data analytics in decision-making
• Apply ethical frameworks to clinical practice in complex situations
• Reflect on the role of leadership in responding to public health crises.

You can revisit steps as you progress through the course so that you feel confident you’re meeting the learning outcomes. As you are working through the steps and activities, you might want to refer back to this step to check your progress against the learning outcomes.

Learning together

Through the next weeks of the course, you won’t be learning on your own. You’ll be studying alongside many learners from around the world.

Use the Comments sections and Discussion steps throughout the course to ask your fellow learners questions and share problems you are stuck on. Share your stories and provide insights and advice for your peers around the world. Developing a collaborative learning environment will lead to a successful and enjoyable course, and will help spread good practice across the global nursing community.

Additional learning

If you have a general interest in this topic, you can work through the learning steps in around two and a half hours each week. However, everyone is different, and you may wish to spend more time on certain steps. Additional videos, links and resources allow you to explore the course topics and the data in more detail. Make the most of these opportunities to further your understanding of this topic.

It’s important that you don’t feel pressured to complete all the elements of the course: your journey is individual and you should decide what elements are relevant to your immediate needs.