The C.A.R.E. Plan: A Novel Communication Framework for Verbal Care Plans

Importance Traditional healthcare education has emphasized technical skills and medical knowledge while potentially overlooking structured communication training. Communication failures account for most perioperative adverse events; therefore, early, discipline-specific communication training is critical for nurse anesthesia residents. Objective To determine whether an acronym-based Case, Assessment, Reflect, Execute (CARE) framework, delivered via simulation, enhances nurse anesthesia residents’ confidence in preoperative communication. Design, Setting, Participants Pre-experimental single-group pretest–posttest study at an accredited front-loaded nurse anesthesia program. Twenty-nine students, selected from a single cohort via computer-generated random sampling prior to beginning residency, participated in a 90-minute educational session followed by a role-play simulation. Main Outcome and Measures Self-reported confidence measurement on five 5-point Likert items (use of appropriate resources, information prioritization, plan formulation ability, verbal presentation, and responsiveness to interactive questioning) was collected immediately before and after the intervention. Results Mean composite confidence rose from 2.72 ± 0.99 to 3.88 ± 0.96 (Δ = 1.16, 95% CI 0.89–1.43; p < .001). Item-level gains ranged from 0.73 to 1.18 points, yielding effectiveness indices of 0.43–0.57. Both paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests confirmed significance despite non-normal score distributions. Instrument reliability improved from α = 0.85 (pretest) to α = 0.96 (posttest). Conclusion A single, simulation-based CARE framework training session produced statistically significant improvements in nurse anesthesia residents’ ability to prioritize critical information and articulate anesthetic plans to preceptors. Although constrained by study limitations, these findings support CARE as a viable framework warranting further investigation in diverse healthcare disciplines and settings outside of anesthesia.