Have you ever wondered why those in healthcare should do simulation-based training? According to the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, “Simulation is a technique that replaces or amplifies real patient experiences, artificially contrived, to evoke substantial aspects of the real world in a fully interactive manner”. This is especially important within healthcare as residents, students, and staff work with patients daily.
But why is this so important in healthcare? Simulation-based training has provided healthcare organizations an effective and efficient way to train residents, students, and staff and improve medical knowledge, communication, and procedural skills with real-life and high-stake healthcare experiences.
Here are the top 5 Reasons to use simulation-based training to educate healthcare students.
1. Practice communication skills (other skills unrelated to healthcare education)
Communication stands at the core of patient-centered care and directly correlates with patient safety and satisfaction. When healthcare professionals excel in communicating, they are better equipped to understand patient concerns, explain complex medical terms in simple language, and provide clear instructions for care.
Simulation-based training is not just limited to healthcare education. Medical professionals also need to develop strong communication skills to effectively communicate with their patients, colleagues, and other healthcare team members. Simulation-based training can provide a safe and controlled environment for medical professionals to practice these skills and receive feedback from trained educators. This can greatly improve communication and teamwork within healthcare settings.
Miscommunication can lead to medication errors, increased recovery times, and ultimately, diminished trust in healthcare systems. Empathetic dialogue fosters a supportive atmosphere that can greatly alleviate patient anxieties and promote a collaborative approach to health management.
Additionally, simulation-based training can also promote interdisciplinary training as it allows medical professionals from different fields to work together and learn from each other. In essence, effective communication within healthcare is not merely a supplementary skill; it is a vital component of quality care that can significantly impact patient outcomes and the overall healthcare experience.
2. Hands-on Experience in a Controlled Environment
It is well-documented that physically doing an activity leads to better knowledge and retention. Simulation scenarios can be repeated multiple times to reinforce learning objectives and address areas that need improvement. This repetitive practice is crucial in healthcare where the mastery of procedural skills can significantly reduce the risk of complications and improve patient outcomes.
One of the main benefits of simulation-based training is its ability to provide hands-on experience in a controlled setting. This allows medical professionals to practice their skills without putting real patients at risk. They can also make mistakes without any consequences, allowing them to learn from them.
This type of learning enables trainees to develop critical thinking skills and make quick decisions in a controlled environment. A powerful tool for embedding knowledge into practice, allowing healthcare professionals to engage in decision-making processes under pressure, without the dire consequences associated with clinical errors.
Furthermore, regular exposure to a variety of simulated clinical scenarios ensures that healthcare workers are adept at responding to different medical situations efficiently and effectively. Through repetition, simulation-based training ingrains a level of skill and confidence that is difficult to achieve through traditional educational methods alone.
3. Improved Method of Assessment:
The iterative nature of simulations means that learners can repeat procedures until proficiency is achieved, a level of repetition not possible in standard patient care without risking patient welfare. This method improves situational awareness, clinical reasoning, and judgment—all within the safe zone of a simulation laboratory but also leads to a more thorough form of assessment and evaluation.
An evaluator can set any session with the appropriate parameters that they see fit to find out if a student is competent in that particular area. As simulation offers a record of performance, this data can be used for recommendations for further training or to create bespoke curricula.
Instead of the typical lecture format of learning or memorizing a list of facts, simulation displays knowledge and skills that help trainers better assess students' readiness. Using real-life situations can give evaluators accurate insights into how a student would perform that task instead of just answering the right questions on a test. Educators can provide a series of marks that students must accomplish but can more intuitively examine the development of their skills.
The custom nature of simulations allows the trainer to tailor the experience that best suits the needs of their students and learners but also the needs of their evaluations. Simulation can be used for formative and summative assessment of learners' performance, providing a comprehensive evaluation to guide future training.
Furthermore, this training method incorporates advanced technology, such as high-fidelity manikins to create lifelike simulations that can be tailor-made to mimic an infinite variety of clinical conditions and patient interactions. As well as video observation and debriefing, which help users reflect and see specific details but also view the progression of skills.
In doing so, simulation offers a diverse and inclusive educational experience that can be adapted to meet the unique learning requirements of each healthcare professional.
4. Opportunity to Practice in High-Stakes Situations:
Simulation-based training also allows for staff, providers, and students to practice on something other than a real patient which is especially important when it could mean life or death. This is why simulation gets used continuously to practice high-state situations and rare events that may not be seen frequently.
In high-stakes situations, where split-second decisions can mean the difference between life and death, simulation-based training holds paramount importance. It offers a unique opportunity for medical professionals to refine their response to critical incidents in a zero-risk environment.
Simulation exercises recreate the intense pressure of life-threatening emergencies, enabling healthcare practitioners to navigate complex clinical emergencies confidently. This form of training ensures that when faced with actual high-stakes scenarios, professionals are not only familiar with the technical aspects of care but are also well-practiced in the art of maintaining composure, leading teams, and executing time-sensitive procedures.
Moreover, by simulating rare medical conditions and emergency responses, practitioners can build a repertoire of experiences that inform their instincts and decision-making capabilities which is invaluable, considering that such rare events provide limited on-the-job training opportunities. This aspect of simulation-based training is crucial for patient survival and improvement of outcomes in real-world life-or-death situations.
5. Reduce Medical Errors:
Statistically, medical errors may account for as many as 251,000 deaths annually in the United States, making medical errors the third leading cause of death. Errors in medicine include wrong diagnoses, drug dosage miscalculations, treatment delays, and more, which all can be taught and practiced with simulation-based training.
However, these numbers are likely to be underestimated as they only consider in-hospital errors, and not those who could have debilitating effects years later, which is even scarier.
So, what do researchers recommend? Safety programs should establish interdisciplinary team training programs that incorporate proven methods of team training such as simulation.
Luckily there are multiple ways to incorporate simulation-based training into healthcare organizations. This can be done using skills trainers, standardized patients, high-fidelity manikins, virtual reality, augmented reality, or anything else to increase the realism of the education being taught.
Why it Matters?
Since there are practically no risks when training in the context of simulation, it can provide excellent opportunities to enhance the quality of education for healthcare professionals while also saving organizations money.
However, simulation can have a large initial expense for organizations, so knowing why your organization should use simulation and what the objectives of the training will be, should be the starting point. This can be done by looking at specific metrics provided by quality, legal, or even by evaluating residents, students, and staff to see where they feel they need more education. Knowing the “why” always helps create buy-in from those upper-level leaders.
Lastly, as simulation-based training continues to grow, the value and data provided by simulation will also grow. Improvements are not only seen in the equipment used in simulation but also in the effectiveness and efficiency of the teaching method in general.
If you are looking to build a new or enhance an existing healthcare simulation lab, download our guide. This guide will help set you up for success with topics and tools to use in your early planning stages including key players, funding, and equipment evaluation.
