Nursing training (Ninh Thuan)
Why was it initiated?
We had worked with Danh Nguyên (director of nursing Ninh Thuan Hospital) during the primary trauma courses and were impressed with her energy and commitment to improving knowledge and perception of nurses throughout Ninh Thuan Hospital. MESCH had no capacity to assist with that until Jane Buckley (senior Australian nurse) contacted us with a desire to build on her previous experience with another organisation in engaging nurses in Vietnam. us with a desire to build on her previous experience with another organisation in engaging nurses in Vietnam.
What are its aims?
The specific aim of this project was to assist in the upskilling of nurses in broad-based clinical tasks improving patient outcomes.
When did it start?
During much of 2024, discussions between Danh Nguyên, Jane and Anh Nguyên (initially acting purely as interpreter), were quite formulaic, with Danh re-presenting a list of quite specific, intensive care based skills she had mentioned to us many times before. However, with the persistence of Jane and Anh (now acting in dual roles as Australian trained nurse and interpreter), Danh took on alternate suggestions in late 2024/ early 2025.
Who has been involved?
Ninh Thuan General Hospital
Administration: Dr Thach and Ns Danh Nguyên
MESCH - Jane Buckley, Anh Nguyên, Kim Lien Nguyên (previous Chief Nurse, Children’s Hospital 2 in HCMC)
What’s happened?
Over 2025, there were frequent meetings between Danh, her senior nursing team, Jane. Anh and a contact of Jane’s, Ms Kim Lien Nguyên (previous Chief Nurse, Children’s Hospital 2 in HCMC). Occasionally doctors attended. We remain unclear of their role.
It was noted during discussions that clinical handovers did not exist or were done poorly. The ISBAR communication tool (endorsed by WHO, universally practiced in Australia and widely used globally) was introduced. Danh became committed to implementing this and a successful trial was completed in early 2025 in the adult ICU.
Since implementation as standard in ICU, feedback has been very positive and Danh presented the results to Dr Thạch. He is very supportive of increasing nurses’ capacity and knowledge - something the previous director was not. He agreed that there should be a gradual roll-out of ISBAR across other clinical areas and a hospital wide presentation was held on 16/12/25. Anh , Ms Lien and Jane are working to provide further education on this.
Progressive Evaluation
Properly implemented, the ISBAR tool has been shown to greatly improve patient outcomes in diverse clinical settings.
This is the first time meaningful change to the perception of the value of nurses and their impact on outcomes has occurred in Ninh Thuan hospital.
Nevertheless, establishing rapport and finding meaningful ways of promoting the skills and self-belief of nurses will be a challenge in the existing system and require a lot of commitment from all involved