IN MY OPINIONBy Elizabeth Blodgett Horsley, Director of Simulation, The Brooklyn Hospital CenterThe Role of Simulation in Enhancing Healthcare EducationSimulation is a technological advancement in education that allows healthcare students to practice psychomotor tasks; it is also an incredibly powerful way of teaching teamwork and communication skillsHealthcare professionals of a certain age will recall that their early days of training generally took the form of the see-one-do-one-teach-one mantra, shadowing a more experienced provider and hoping an interesting opportunity presented itself or simply being told to read the policy/procedure manual or the requisite skills textbook and follow through as instructed. Teamwork, leadership, and communication skills might have been eluded to in a one-off lecture on their importance but the underlying expectation was we would just intuitively know how to communicate and be a member of a functioning team. Over time however, the healthcare system underwent cosmic shifts that have influenced the way healthcare professionals are learning. Shorter hospital stays, combined with in-patients who are more acutely ill plus duty hour restrictions make it difficult to find adequate clinical placements and experiences for students. Patient safety and patient engagement is at the forefront of hospital mission and visions and as such the days of it being acceptable to randomly practice on real people are rapidly and thankfully dwindling. At one time, the Elizabeth Blodgett Horsley | | November 20188UTLOOK Healthcare Tech
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