October Presidential Message - We now know how to quantify simulation’s impact > The Society for Simulation in Healthcare
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I hope that everyone enjoyed Healthcare Simulation Week! We were able to spread the word and advocate for simulation and have a little fun in the process.

The videos submitted were awesome! We received well over 50 submissions from around the world. The competition was fierce, and this year’s winning entry from Centro de Simulación Clínica de la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa-Perú was well-deserved!

We were all over social media, live on Facebook, and used print and digital communications methods as well. A special thanks to Media and Communications Committee Chair Kirsty Freeman, Healthcare Simulation Week Chair Cynthia Shum, the Media and Communications Committee, SSH Marketing Director Curtis Kitchen, and everyone else who all pitched in to bring together this important event.

Thank you all for participating and spreading the word!

New TV project for SSH

While that all happened, also in September, we filmed a special segment for a new pilot television program, Frontiers in Healthcare Simulation. The segment was filmed at the Center for Immersive and Simulation-based Learning at the School of Medicine at Stanford University.

Dr. David Gaba, Susan Eller, myself, and a cadre of others spent a day filming, talking about the history of healthcare simulation and its importance. I spoke about the Society, our purpose and mission, and our initiatives and meetings. We are very excited for production to be completed in the next couple of months and hopefully have the segment air in January. The understood plan is for the segment to appear on a well-known cable business channel and also be streamed world-wide through YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and more. We will be sending out details about when it will be aired as soon as we know.

This project is a great signal of SSH’s growing influence and positioning in the healthcare simulation world. It’s very exciting to have this kind of opportunity to share SSH!

Busy travel time

Elsewhere, I spent time in Australia, attending the Simulation Australasia Congress on the Gold Coast. I met with members of the Australian Society for Simulation in Healthcare (ASSH) to strategize on ways we can work together to move our simulation agenda forward. October has been and will continue to be a busy month with the Simulation Canada simulation conference and planning for our face-to-face SSH Board meeting in November.

I was honored to present the Debra Spunt lecture at the National League for Nursing (NLN). Debra was one of the founders of the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL) and passed away in 2007. I spoke about how simulation has disrupted healthcare education and has made us all think differently on how we educate our students.

Over the last 10-15 years, we have had to justify, quantify, and convince others that simulation works. We now know that it works. As we look at the cost of healthcare today, simulation can help us avoid costs. Back in the 80’s when managed care was prevalent, many education programs were cut, and this was primarily because we did not know how to measure or quantify what we did.

We know now.

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.

We now have national guidelines for simulation programs and simulation standards from INASCL for design, outcomes and objectives, facilitation, debriefing, evaluation, professional integrity, interprofessional education and operations. The Society for Simulation in Healthcare has standards for accreditation, and certifications for healthcare simulation educators and operations specialists. We need simulation programs and faculty to utilize the standards that have been created and are available on both SSH and INACSL’s websites.

New working group appointed

In terms of SSH business, I appointed a working group to investigate the possibilities of creating a scenario bank for our members to upload scenarios. I also appointed a working group to define what partnership means to us and how and who we need to partner with in the future. We are looking at organizations that share similar goals and objectives to collectively continue to not only advocate for simulation but possibly work on joint projects.

IMSH2020 Early Bird deadline Oct. 24!

Don’t forget that the early bird deadline for IMSH is Oct. 24, and all content for the entire conference will be announced before the end of October.

For those who need it, the SSH has an IMSH justification kit is available for those who would like assistance in obtaining permission (and budget) to attend.

I look forward to seeing you all in San Diego at IMSH, please find me and introduce yourself!

Follow me on Twitter: @KTWaxman.

Best regards,

KT

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