McGraw-Hill Brings Advanced Medical Education Technology to Emergency Care Courses, Extending Digital Simulation Platform to New Disciplines

NEW YORK, Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Emergency medical personnel must quickly react on the scene of an emergency and make decisions based on a number of medical variables and patient reactions. Developing the skills and quick thinking necessary to respond in high-pressure situations require hours of real-world scenario training, and now, new digital tools and online platforms can reinforce these skills, building confidence and expertise in emergency care students as they study key concepts. With digital offerings across emergency care courses, McGraw-Hill is one of the first educational publishers to develop online tools that align with the new Emergency Medical Services (EMS) education standards released in 2009 by the National Association of EMS Educators.

ACTIVSim™ (McGraw-Hill) is an online simulator that provides students the opportunity to hone their medical training skills on virtual patients with real-life cases and real-time feedback for a realistic yet computer-based clinical experience. Launched in 2008 for Medical Assisting courses, ACTIVSim is now available for emergency medical technician (EMT) and emergency medical responder (EMR) level courses, and will expand to nursing in January 2011.  As an introduction to patient interaction or used as a study tool, ACTIVSim is a valuable tool for students to practice their communication, patient interviewing and decision-making skills in a safe, non-life-threatening virtual environment.

"By expanding McGraw-Hill's digital offerings to encompass emergency care courses, we're ensuring that we meet one of our medical education and training priorities: providing students with the in-class instruction, scenario training and study resources they need to be successful in the field," said James Kelly, president of Career Education at McGraw-Hill. "It's vitally important for emergency medical responders and emergency medical technicians to feel comfortable and confident when they arrive on the scene, and the digital programs offered through ACTIVSim, Connect and LearnSmart provide the support and resources necessary to develop these skills."

Connect® for Emergency Medical Responders and Emergency Medical Technicians enhances digital access to course materials for emergency medical services students. As a web-based assignment and assessment platform, Connect allows anytime, anywhere access to course content for students and teachers that provides a simple way to assign, customize and track student performance.  Currently, more than 1.8 million students and professors and some 600 colleges and universities nationwide are using the Connect platform across 34 academic disciplines.

Offered through Connect and as a stand-alone study tool, LearnSmart, an important digital resource for EMS students, is an adaptive assessment program that diagnoses students' skill levels to determine what they're good at and where they need help, creating an individual path to achieve mastery of course content.

Recently, McGraw-Hill announced a partnership with Blackboard Inc. that will allow students and faculty to use their campus Blackboard account to access the full suite of McGraw-Hill content and tools, including the interactive ebook, videos, text -specific interactive assignments, course-specific assessments and Lecture Capture technology from Tegrity. Additionally, scores for McGraw-Hill Connect assignments, quizzes and tests will post directly to the Blackboard gradebook, eliminating the need for students and instructors to manage account access and updates in two separate systems and providing students centralized access to everything that instructors make available online.

These products will be showcased at the upcoming NAEMSE "On the Winds of Change in EMS Education Symposium" in Schaumburg, IL, September 7–10, 2010.

For more information, visit mhhe.com or call 1-800-446-8979.

About McGraw-Hill Higher Education:

McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a unit of McGraw-Hill Education, is a leading innovator in the development of 21st century teaching and learning digital solutions for postsecondary and higher education markets worldwide. Through a comprehensive range of traditional and digital education content and tools focused on improving student learning outcomes, McGraw-Hill Higher Education empowers and prepares professionals and students to connect, learn and succeed in the global economy. McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), has offices in 33 countries and publishes in more than 65 languages. Additional information is available at http://www.mheducation.com.

SOURCE McGraw-Hill Education