Simulation Is Changing The Way That Healthcare Professionals Learn And Improve Patient Safety

Healthcare Simulation Week to Debut September 11-15, 2017

News provided by

Society for Simulation in Healthcare

Sep 06, 2017, 13:19 ET

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Healthcare simulation is rapidly changing the face of healthcare. Simulation is a technique that creates a situation or environment allowing people to experience a representation of a real event for the purpose of experiential practice, learning, testing, evaluation and understanding of systems. The inaugural Healthcare Simulation Week will be held September 11-15, 2017.

"This week recognizes the ongoing contributions that professionals in healthcare simulation make to advancing patient care," said Jennifer Manos, RN, MSN, MBA , Executive Director, Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH). "It also raises awareness of healthcare simulation in communities throughout the world."

Healthcare Simulation Week, sponsored by SSH, celebrates professionals who use simulation to improve the quality of healthcare. Simulation is a rapidly evolving field in which an increasing number of healthcare professionals are finding fulfilling, lifelong career.

Using simulation, learners address critical skills including procedures, dynamic decision-making, and communication. Essential teamwork behaviors such as managing high workload and coordinating under stress are practiced. Simulation-based training encompasses a broad range of experiences, including the use of task trainers, mannequins and virtual reality for technical procedures that range from suturing to delivering babies. It also includes standardized patients (role-players) who act as patients and fully staged scenarios that prepare providers for catastrophic events such as natural disasters or mass shootings.

Beyond teaching skills for individual learners, simulation provides insight into the performance and effectiveness of processes and systems critical to patient safety and patient care. Improving the care sequence within a hospital, for instance, requires an accurate model of the care process simulated against numerous "what if" conditions. The insights learned help a hospital to properly plan for and manage both normal and abnormal conditions – all which result in better care for patients.

"Healthcare Simulation Week honors every professional around the world advocating for healthcare simulation in education and practice, research, modeling and design," said Dr. Christine Park, President of Society for Simulation in Healthcare. "Healthcare systems are embracing simulation as an effective set of strategies that enhances the quality of healthcare."

"Numerous studies demonstrate that simulation more effectively prepares all types of providers, including physicians, nurses, first responders and across the full spectrum of experience," Park said. "Simulation provides the opportunity to learn, analyze error, and maintain life-saving skills before working on actual patients."

Healthcare Simulation Week will be celebrated throughout the week with a variety of activities: