Graduate Essay: Action Plan for Creation of NursingSimulationCenter
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Graduate Essay: Action Plan for Creation of NursingSimulationCenter
Patients at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) require and deserve nurses that have state-of-the-art education. Nurses at BWH provide an exceptionally sophisticated level of care in order to support the cutting-edge medical and surgical science practiced there. A quick tour through any of the patient care units illustrates the extraordinary needs of the remarkable patients. Examples range from the tiniest baby benefiting from in-utero fetal surgery, to the patient dependent upon a Left-Ventricular-Assist-Device, to the beautiful story in the recent BWH Bulletin regarding unprecedented treatment for mesothelioma.
To meet the health care needs of patients and educational needs of our nurses, the Nursing Professional Development Department and the Biomedical Department are collaborating to create a NursingSimulationCenter in the Nursing Development Department at One Brigham Circle. The NursingSimulationCenter will provide a variety of unprecedented training opportunities for the nursing staff at Brigham and Women’s Hospital including task training and full-scale simulation training.
BWH nurses need simulation training! The importance of simulation technology as a tool in the education of health care providers is rapidly expanding and will soon become the standard. [i] The benefits of human patient simulators have been recognized in physician training for many years.[ii] [iii][iv] One of the unique advantages of simulation is the fact that no harm can come to patients during the acquisition of skills. Simulation is very useful for learning the management of rare and infrequent events. At BWH, the newly developed STRATUS center is targeted to training physicians for emergency medical care. It is time to include all nurses in this valuable training opportunity.
Simulation training provides the nurse with an opportunity to gain knowledge, technical skills, communication skills and the ability to work in an interdisciplinary environment. The advantages of a comprehensive nursing simulation center can lead to positive improvements in patient outcomes.[v] Simulation offers the opportunity to learn in a controlled educational environment and provides them with the skills for the safe administration of health care to patients.[vi] Simulation training combined with clinical practice has been shown to help the nurse be better prepared, more confident and efficient and ultimately more competent.[vii][viii][ix] Simulation training is also listed as a factor in choosing employment opportunities; and, as such could in part ease the shortage of nurses. Simulation offers many educational opportunities that cannot be offered safely in the patient care environment. [x]
Our vision and goals for the NursingSimulationCenter at Brigham and Women’s Hospital are focused upon the unique educational needs of BWH nurses practicing at the bedside of our highly sophisticated, exceptional, quaternary care facility. Our nursing education should be as renowned as our nursing care.
Towards these goals, we have created an action plan for the creation of our NursingSimulationCenter that is illustrated in the attached graphic. We are collaborating with existing simulation centers for sage advice and guidance. We have hired contractors for audiovisual technology installation and building renovations. We have acquired state-of-the-art medical equipment including two computerized human simulation mannequins. The equipment is one stepping-stone of our project. We need to learn how to maximize the potential of these phenomenal resources. We are currently in the process of creating multidisciplinary goals for use of the center.
My co-leader and I will be traveling to OregonHealthSciencesUniversity for an individualized training seminar. The OHSUSimulation & ClinicalResourceCenter provides seminars that support simulation development and integration of simulation into a variety of health care education curricula. This center is currently the state-of-the-art simulation center with the strongest nursing influence in the country. The center was developed through the collaborative efforts of the OHSU Schools of Medicine and Nursing; however, this center is renowned for their nursing training. The center provides full-scale simulation, task and skill training, virtual reality trainers, and computer-based training. Full-scale simulation is available using real-time computers, a life-like mannequin and elaborate setups including, but not limited to a mock OR, ICU, ER, patient room and home care environment.
My final project for this course is to create a Web site for the SimulationCenter that includes links to other Nursing Simulation Centers, information regarding simulation as a teaching tool, and a training course for clinical experts regarding the creation of simulation scenarios.
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[i] Seropian, M.A. (2004) General Concepts in Full Scale Simulation: Getting Started. Anesthesia & Analgesia.. 97(6):1695-1705.
[ii]Doyle D.J. (2002). Simulation in medical education: Focus on anesthesiology. Medical Education Online. 7(16).
[iii]Gunn S.R., Rogers P.L., Fink M..P, Grenvik A., Gunnerson K.J., Huang D. (2003). Critical care training for emergency physicians. Annals of Emergency Medicine;. 41(6):886-887.
[iv]Marshall, R.L., Smith, J.S., Forman, P.J., Krummel, T.M,, Haluck, R.S., and Cooney, R.N. Use of a Human Patient Simulator in the Development of Resident Trauma Management Skills. Trauma. 51(1):17 – 21.
[v] Gaba, D.M., Fish, K.J., & Howard, S.K. (1994) Crisis management in anesthesiology. New York: Churchill Livingston.
[vi] Seropian, M.A. (2004) General Concepts in Full Scale Simulation: Getting Started. Anesthesia & Analgesia.. 97(6):1695-1705.
[vii]Nehring W.M., Lashley F.R., Ellis W.E. (2002) Critical incident nursing management: using human patient simulators. Nursing Education Perspectives;. (3):128-132.
[viii]Chang K.K., Chung J.W., Wong T.K.(2002). Learning intravenous cannulation: a comparison of the conventional method and the CathSim Intravenous Training System. Journal of Clinical Nursing . 11(1):73-78.
[ix]Goolsby M.J. (2001). The role of computer-assisted simulation in nurse practitioner education. Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Nurse Practitioners. 13(2):90-97.
[x] Nunn, A. (2004). Almost the real thing. Nursing Management. 11(7):14-18.