Virtual Clinical Excursions is an innovative CD-ROM/workbook package that makes textbook content come alive and diminishes your anxiety about entering the clinical setting. VCE helps bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world by introducing you to clinical settings and critical thinking before you actually start clinical rotations making the transition from nursing student to caregiver a smoother process. In this virtual hospital setting, you will interact with a variety of patients and gain valuable experience with documentation, communication, prioritization, medication safety, critical thinking, patient education, and care planning. Real-world nursing scenarios challenge you to set priorities for care, collect data, analyze and interpret data, and reach conclusions about complex problems within a health-illness transition. The highly engaging format encourages active learning and provides opportunities to collect and process data for evidence-based patient care; work with data entry and retrieval screens; access available information resources; understand hospital information systems; manage information for decision-making; and maintain and improve your core computing skills. Workbook activities guide you through the virtual environment where you are responsible for monitoring and caring for one or more patients during three 45-minute periods of care within a 12-hour shift. Six unique patients/cases feature realistic patient data in the Electronic Patient Record, Patient Charts, KARDEX, and Medication Administration Record. Various activities require you to examine and document vital signs, as well as assess information related to the head and neck, chest, back and spine, upper extremities, abdomen, pelvic region, and lower extremities strengthening your physical assessment knowledge and skills. Clinical Alerts highlight changes in the patient's condition. A medication administration feature enables you to select, prepare, and administer medications. A Medication Room introduces you to a wide variety of drug storage areas, such as a Unit Dosage Cabinet, Automated Dispensing System, IV Storage, and a Refrigerator. Over 50 common medication errors embedded within the software challenge you to think critically about safe medication practices and follow safe medication standards. A Medication Scorecard provides instant feedback on what medications you administered correctly and which medications you administered incorrectly. Includes over 250 NCLEX® examination-style questions based on the VCE patients. An Examination Report checklist tracks your performance on Baseline and Focused assessments. The workbook includes time icons that indicate how long it will take to complete a particular exercise. Icons for linked activities alert you when a particular workbook exercise is linked to another exercise and cannot be completed independently. Flash-based technology is easy to use and offers seamless navigation.