A multidisciplinary international network of researchers from across UCalgary and overseas is tapping into focusing techniques used by elite athletes and the insight of patients to better approach the application of IVs.
Peripheral intravenous (IV) insertion is one of the most common procedures in health care, yet for many patients it can be painful, anxiety-provoking and repeated more often than it should be. For Shannon Parker, an associate professor in the University of Calgary's Faculty of Nursing, these experiences raised a broader question: Not simply how to improve technical performance, but how IV care is taught and experienced within health and education systems.
"IV insertion is often treated as a routine technical task, and, for patients, it can be one of the most distressing parts of a hospital stay," says Parker, BPE'96, BN'03, MN'15.
Parker established the CONNECT (Collaborative Network Redesigning Peripheral Vascular Access with Patients as Co-Researchers) research group to work on new tools and techniques for teaching IV insertion. Uniting researchers from UCalgary Nursing, Cumming School of Medicine, Schulich School of Engineering, and this Faculty of Arts, along with a sports psychologist from the U.K., and nurse-scientists from the University of Galway in Ireland, this transdisciplinary group is using insights from sport-science and patient experiences to help nursing students learn hands-on skills more effectively such as IV insertion while keeping patients safe.
Learning from sport-science to improve performance
The hands-on research of CONNECT is called Quiet Eye Training, a technique developed in elite sport that teaches people where and how to focus their eyes during a task.
While not widely applied in nursing, it's has been used by athletes and surgeons to improve accuracy in complex movement. The CONNECT research program is testing whether Quiet Eye can help nursing students learn skills faster and make fewer mistakes, such as starting an IV.
Noting that IV insertion is often distressing for both practitioner and patient, and repeated failed attempts can also heighten anxiety for nurses performing the procedure, notes Megan Kirkpatrick, BN'09, MN'17, also an associate professor with Nursing.
CONNECT collaborator Dr. Joe Causer, PhD, associate professor of sensorimotor behaviour at Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K., is a leading researcher in expert performance who recently presented a seminar at UCalgary.
His work studies how people stay focused and accurate when doing difficult tasks under pressure. Causer also studies how beginners can be trained to improve faster and make fewer mistakes. All this is useful for nursing students.
"Much of expert performance comes down to where people look and when they look there," says Causer. "By understanding gaze behaviour (eye movements that fixate or shift one's focus), we can identify how experts extract the right information at the right time."
He showcased this during his visiting-scholar seminar on April 15, From Elite Sport to Clinical Practice: Training Visual Attention in High-Performance Environments, which demonstrated how elite sport can support safer, more-effective practice in nursing, health care, engineering and other high-pressure fields.
"High-pressure environments place heavy demands on attention and working memory," Causer says. "Our research shows that skilled performers manage this by stabilizing their gaze and directing attention to the most relevant information."
The CONNECT group is exploring whether nurses can recreate this technique during IV insertion, leading to a more confident approach and less errors.
Rethinking IV care through patient experience
"If we want to improve IV care in meaningful ways, we have to listen to patients and understanding IV insertion as a learning and system issue, not just a performance one," says Parker.
Patient insights reinforce CONNECT's commitment to moving beyond task-based teaching toward person-centred IV care shaped by those with lived experience. The research group includes several patients who bring their unique perspective to the project. These patient-partner researchers are Deb Baranec, James Kempster and Linda Niksic.
"CONNECT was intentionally designed as a partnership, not a project done to or about patients," says Parker. "People with lived experience help shape the questions we ask, how we interpret evidence, and what improvements actually matter."
Patients' lived experiences inform the approach of Bemi Lawal, assistant professor in Nursing and CONNECT collaborator.
"As a Black nurse and educator, my approach to teaching IV insertion is shaped by both clinical expertise and lived experience," Lawal says. "Too often, patients like me are labelled as 'difficult start' or 'difficult sticks.' However, the issue is not our veins, but the approach. When we co-design teaching with patients, listening to their experiences and valuing what they know about their own bodies, we move from task-based practice to person-centred care."
Precision in Practice session develops route to safer IV insertion
On April 16, The CONNECT group, including Causer, hosted the event Precision in Practice: Improving IV Care Through Co-Design, bringing researchers from across UCalgary and other institutions together with patients to share lived experiences, explore challenges in IV care, and work collaboratively to identify practical ways to improve training and patient outcomes.
By centring both performance science and patient perspectives, a road map that supports safer and more compassionate IV care is in development.
"Veins are not just seen, they are felt, respected and approached with skill," says Lawal. "Every nurse can learn to insert IVs successfully, and no patient should have to endure repeated, painful attempts and IV complications."
