Viva La Simulation!

This is from an article published on SSH.org on 18 October by Dr. KT Waxman, the current President of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. It is a very reassuring thing to hear, if you have worked in this career field for as long as I have. Nursing education is carrying the torch for the requirement of simulation to maintain licensure. Simulation is the way to safer medical care.

Now We Know

"One medication error, one case of sepsis, one fall, one infection can cost a hospital hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Using simulation with staff and students to learn and train on these types of issues can increase quality and save lives. I have seen several successful academic/service partnerships whereby the school supplies trained simulation faculty to the hospital to help with training. Some have dual appointments, and some have students train in their hospital simulation center before caring for patients in the hospital.

We have learned that the methodologies we utilize in simulation can be transferred to other clinical areas such as clinical post conference and our classrooms. Think about the concepts of debriefing and how they can be transferred to other areas!

In nursing, each state’s board of nursing controls how many hours of simulation are allowed per course in pre-licensure programs. As of today, (from the INACSL website), 16 states have moved to 50%; 2 are at 30% and 7 are at 25%. The other 26 states have no regulation regarding simulation. We need to move to a standard for simulation hours nation-wide.

One of the key components from the NCSBN study showed that faculty development is critical for a successful program, and unfortunately that is a challenge financially for all of us. Many of us budgeted for equipment and space – not staff and certainly not faculty development. We need our faculty in simulation to be skilled in the pedagogy; to create a learning environment that is safe."