January 13, 2021By Lance Baily

Top 50 Healthcare Simulation Posts of 2020

HealthySimulation.com is excited to share this list of the top 50 healthcare simulation posts of 2020 with simulationists around the world. The past year has presented a number of challenges given the COVID-19 pandemic, but faced with these obstacles, healthcare simulation technicians, educators and administrators worked together to revolutionize the way medical simulation education and training is performed. From switching to largely virtual and remote healthcare simulation training methods, to helping ready hospital staff members for an influx of coronavirus patients, the field of healthcare simulation has made unbelievable strides in just 12 months. Please be sure to share this article with all your simulation colleagues to help convey all that has happened during 2020. Also, consider sharing your simulation news with us in 2021 – together lets help keep the healthcare simulation community informed!

50.  Dr. Berry’s Academic Nursing Leaders Blog Encourages Healthcare Simulation in Nursing: In working with others to design and build the future of healthcare in academic nursing, Devon M. Berry, Ph.D., RN, created a next-gen academic nursing leaders blog that serves as a forum for the nursing community. The blog’s goal is to challenge the thinking of both current and future academic nursing leaders while they engage in compelling conversations about the field. Take a look at some of Dr. Berry’s work which supports the use of nursing simulation!

49. How to Use the Reflective Pause in Clinical Simulation Debriefing to Maximize Learner Engagement: Timothy C. Clapper. PhD, shares his recent research with Kim Leighton, PhD, RN entitled “Incorporating the Reflective Pause in Simulation: A Practical Guide” (published in The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing). Clapper’s summary of this original article provides an overview of the reflective pause, an important yet relatively unknown concept in the medical simulation-based education lexicon.


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48. Healthcare Simulation Center Design: Lessons From Leading Technical Experts: Comprehensive Healthcare Simulation: Operations, Technology, and Innovative Practice is the leading medical simulation book for those administrating or operating sim lab technologies, spaces, staff and processes. From the basic theories to advanced practices, the latest healthcare simulation book has been praised by readers as a “must read” item for anyone operating, managing, or starting a medical simulation center. This article examines the chapter on “Infrastructure and Center Design” from leading experts Ferooz Sekandarpoor and Eduardo R. Luevano.

47. 13 More Simulation in Healthcare Companies to That You Need to Know About: Understanding all of the potential companies, products, and services available in our ever growing medical simulation industry is important. New technologies from the companies we have been sharing about previously and here today, are revolutionizing training paradigms with the latest in clinical simulation tools for a dynamic range of educational outcomes.

46. $25M Dolphin Simulator Demonstrates Advances in High-Fidelity Realism: Digital Trends shared how a Robo-Dolphin from Edge Innovations has created an extremely realistic marine animal simulator which is being used for education and training purposes. Certainly manikins we are working with now in healthcare simulation, like those from CAE Healthcare, are the cutting edge of human patient simulator technologies — but what could we learn from looking at realistic simulators from other industries?

45. Surgical Simulators Expand Modern Surgery Intervention Training: Surgical simulation is a specialized area of medical simulation that enables learners and professionals to train on the latest surgical simulator technologies. As technology advances, many more surgical simulators are being introduced to the market as viable training solutions. This article shares some of the most recent developments in surgery simulators for those programs who support these clinical training needs!


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44. High Quality PPE Still Available for Healthcare Simulation Educators from Medical Shipment: Personal Protective Equipment has become as important as ever among healthcare workers, including healthcare simulation educators and administrators, during the COVID-19 pandemic. To help provide the best quality medical supplies and ensure safety for learners and educators across clinical simulation training, Medical Shipment offers a number of PPE supplies. The company’s shift to providing the necessary PPE to combat the coronavirus has helped providers meet this critically important need.

43. Using Clinical Simulation to Improve Medication Administration Safety: Presented by Kim Baily, MSN, PhD, RN, this webinar is designed to introduce nursing educators to the use of healthcare simulation in order to provide an immersive learning experience for undergraduate and registered nurses to improve medication administration skills. The class will outline current statistics related to medication errors and near misses as well as the causes of the errors. Medication administration standards and evidence based practice related to medication administration will be reviewed.

42. Overcoming Campus Disruptions, Over 50 Institutions Now Using Free Access to OMS Distance Simulation Platform: The Oxford Medical Simulation (OMS) team appreciates how hard it is to deliver healthcare simulation and clinical education at the best of times, let alone during a crisis, and therefore decided to offer free access to the OMS Distance Simulation platform to healthcare institutions across the US, Canada and the UK in March. This article examines the platform which has already helped 50 healthcare institutions get back on track after massive COVID-19 campus disruptions.

41. When Healthcare Simulation Alone is Not Enough: Kim Baily PhD, MSN, RN, CNE, previous Simulation Coordinator for Los Angeles Harbor College and Director of Nursing for El Camino College, explores exactly how training in medical simulation and skills lab translates to competency in the clinical setting and improved patient safety. She highlights here both studies that show improvement of clinical competency following skills training, and conversely, show that it makes no difference at all. Simply put, do we train for blood pressure measurement better through human patient simulators, through standardized patients, or — through both?

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40. WISER’s Dr. Paul Phrampus Covers Must Know Medical Simulation Topics on Simulating Healthcare Blog: Dr. Paul E. Phrampus, FACEP, FSSH, is the Director of UPMC’s Peter M. Winter Institute for Simulation, Education and Research (WISER Center), as well as a Professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Anesthesiology of the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine and Medical Director for Patient Safety at UPMC. This article takes a look at three of his latest healthcare simulation videos which cover orientation, debriefing locations, and cognitive load in simulation scenario design.

39. Should Educators Allow Nursing Simulation Students to Practice with Needles At Home?: In this article, Kim Baily PhD, MSN, RN, CNE, previous Simulation Coordinator for Los Angeles Harbor College and Director of Nursing for El Camino College, considers whether nursing simulation students should be able to practice needle sticks at home outside of the simulation labs. Have a story to share with the global healthcare simulation community? Submit your simulation news and resources here!

38. MedVision and Echo Healthcare Announce New Simulator Service Support ‘MeLiSA’ for North America: In September, MedVision and Echo Healthcare announced their partnership to provide MeLiSA (Master Level Service Agreement) service and support on MedVision’s line of patient simulators in North America. With the partnership, MedVision simulators will be serviced by the revolutionary model that is redefining warranty support in the healthcare simulation industry.

37. GIGXR Launches Holographic Standardized Patients for Remote Clinical Simulation Training: GIGXR, provider of the extended reality (XR) GIG Immersive Learning System for instructor-led teaching and training, has officially launched their Holographic Standardized Patient learning tools in October. The new bundled applications, GIG Mobile and HoloPatient Remote, are built for online and hybrid learning environments, these applications together facilitate safe and socially distanced standardized patient simulation training.

36. Innovation & Moulage: Affordable Solutions to Increase Clinical Simulation Realism: Tracie Barbour, CHSOS, shares some examples of commonly-found items we have utilized to create engagement in our high fidelity simulations. Moulage is the special effects makeup that helps best present the patient case scenario to the learner. Imaging a patient has experience burn wounds on a manikin without any moulage, versus experiencing the more realistic patient presentation of a manikin covered in burn wounds will impact the way learners train for patients.

35. New Study Finds VR Effective for ACLS Training with 83% Cost Savings: A recent Mount Sinai HELPS Center study found that Virtual Reality ACLS simulation training was effective for assessing Advanced Cardiac Life Support competency, to the tune of 83% cost savings, 25% faculty requirements, and almost half the training time! This article explores this research, AHA guidelines on addressing ACLS skills decay, and the new Virtual Reality system that is changing the game for VR ACLS training: Health Scholars.

34. Health Scholars, AAP Partner to Develop New First Responder Pediatric Virtual Reality Training: Virtual reality (VR) provides educators with the ability to scale experience-based training to any size population, while enabling an affordable and efficient way to increase exposure and the frequency of deliberate practice. Shown to have direct correlation with improved retention, performance and patient outcomes, Health Scholars and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have recently partnered to help make VR simulation training opportunities increasingly available to first responders.

33. Research Suggests CPR Manikins Find Only 2% of Learners Competent: While we might think that human instructors assess better than resuscitation simulators, new research shockingly suggests that CPR manikins find only 2% of learners are competent, compared to 90% of instructors who scored adequate performance. This article covers a study by Hansen et al. which shockingly reveals that certified basic life support (BLS) instructors failed to identify resuscitation skills accurately when compared to human patient simulators.

32. Gordon Center Offers Powerful Curriculum for Clinical Simulation Learners: At the heart of The University of Miami Health System’s Michael S. Gordon Center for Simulation and Innovation in Medical Education, or Gordon Center for short, is the mission to save lives with education, innovation and healthcare simulation. With that aim, the Gordon Center developed a series of online curricula for healthcare providers and students around the world to improve patient outcomes and save lives. This article shares the center’s curriculum, unique learning programs, powerful simulators, and leading courses available.

31. The Value of Virtual Reality in Healthcare Simulation: VR is defined as the computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors. This article explores some of the literature, advantages and disadvantages of this ground-breaking VR technology in clinical education during the Coronavirus pandemic.

30. Simterviews: Lynn Welch | VP of Business Development & Marketing, EMS: Lynn Welch is the Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at Education Management Solutions, now a part of Collegis, LLC. She currently serves as the Chair of the Corporate Roundtable and on the Board of Directors for the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSiH). Her unique background experiences with federal defense, global marketing, business development, sales leadership, and volunteer efforts make her a rare champion for the healthcare simulation industry.

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29. Escape Rooms in Medical Simulation: Downloadable Sepsis Scenario & More: Have you ever tried an Escape Room? How about an Escape Room of Medical Simulation? They are perfect opportunities for teams that have never met before (or even better if they have) and ask them to quickly solve under time pressure the uniquely random sets of (hopefully) solve-able problems — albeit strictly for fun! This article presents ways for healthcare simulation educators to do just that.

28. Patient Safety Movement Foundation: The Importance of High Reliability and Safer Care Through Simulation: To help offset unreliability and medical error, the Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF) provides free resources to healthcare simulation organizations across the continuum of care become more highly reliable across the globe. The organization’s Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS) are freely available on the organization’s website.

27. CAE Healthcare’s New Podcast Clinical Simulation Debrief Empowers Global Audience: A CAE Healthcare podcast about the future of healthcare simulation as argued, debated and discussed by leading voices, pioneers and experts in the field was recently unveiled by CAE Healthcare. Entitled “Simulation Debrief” and hosted by Dr. Amar Patel, DHSc, MS, NRP, CHSE, FSSH, Chief Learning Officer of CAE Healthcare, former hospital simulation center and innovations executive director, researcher, lifelong emergency services educator, firefighter and paramedic.

26. VirtaMed Launches New LaparoS Laparoscopy Surgical Simulator with Mobile Sim Lab Tour Across EU: Over the summer, Switzerland-based surgical simulator company VirtaMed took a refreshing road trip across the country with their first mobile simulation lab. Here we share some of the highlights from the trip which was also the launch of VirtaMed’s new laparoscopic simulator LaparoS. The mobile surgical simulation lab covered over 2000 kilometers across Switzerland and visited 16 Swiss University Hospitals, starting in St. Gallen, continuing to Lucerne, Berne, Geneva, and ending in Lausanne.

25. Sentinel U Offers Virtually Endless Clinicals for Future and Practicing Nurses: A division of American Sentinel University, formerly known as Healthcare Learning Innovations, Sentinel U now offers a comprehensive portfolio filled with web based virtual clinical simulation solutions for empowered healthcare education & professional development workplace training. In effect, Sentinel U now offers virtually endless clinical learning experiences for future and practicing nurses. With Sentinel U’s multiple modules under one comprehensive program umbrella, nursing simulation programs can uniquely acquire the exact learning technologies they need now to continue and expand virtual learning events.

24. Listen Up: Medical Simulation Podcasts Are Moving Healthcare Education Forward: Healthcare Simulation Podcasts are providing unique and fascinating content that directly supports the evolution of the methodology across the entire healthcare industry. Here today we share about four of the most prominent podcasts created by expert clinical simulation champions from around the world, with topics that focus on the technical to the administrative and everything in between. These useful medical simulation podcasts are perfect listening material for those on the go.

23. Pocket Nurse SimTalk Blog: Top 10 Nursing Simulation Posts of 2020: During a year filled with unique healthcare simulation challenges due to COVID-19, Pocket Nurse has used the company’s SimTalk Blog to relay important educational information across the clinical simulation community in 2020. By supporting educational goals with accurate and comprehensive posts, the SimTalk Blog has helped bring informative content to readers across the world. Of these posts, here are the Top 10 Pocket Nurse SimTalk Blog posts of 2020.

22. Medical Simulation Jobs Listing Page: HealthySimulation.com shares career opportunities from across the field of medical simulation regularly. From positions as a simulation technician to simulation educator or simulation director, the goal is to help connect the clinical simulation community with healthcare simulation jobs they may be interested in. These Healthcare simulation jobs which largely fit into one of three key areas: administration, clinical education, and simulation technology operations.

21. UPMC’s WISER Sim Center Offers Online Tech Sim Program for Clinical Simulation Specialists: Based upon the Society for Simulation in Healthcare’s (SSH) CHSOS blueprints, WISER is pleased to offer the global healthcare simulation community the opportunity to enroll in their Online TechSim Program. The Tech Sim Online program was designed to help those who are new to the clinical simulation industry or new to the role of simulation operations.

20. Up to Date 2021 Healthcare Simulation Conferences and Events: As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, many healthcare simulation conferences and events were cancelled, postponed or moved to a virtual platform in 2020. Despite these changes, a number of online gatherings helped sim champs participate in the clinical simulation conversation. Much of this discussion involved how sim centers and healthcare systems were adapting to COVID-19 and meeting the need for training.

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19. CARES Act Provides Immediate Funding Opportunities for Healthcare Simulation: Healthcare Simulation Programs in the United States can immediately apply for funds from the CARES Act to support their educational, training, and patient safety initiatives during the COVID-19 global pandemic. CARES stands for “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security” and the act will provide more than $2 trillion in economic relief including medical education and training equipment and learning tools. Angela Hoenig from Nasco Healthcare and Simulaids shares more about these time-sensitive opportunities for financial support from the federal government.

18. Tips for Optimizing Virtual Debriefings in the Era of COVID-19, From The Debriefing Academy: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many healthcare simulation programs to move their educational curriculum to the online virtual environments. As a result, clinical simulation educators are conducting more virtual debriefings, which involves facilitating conversations via web-based teleconferencing platforms. Virtual debriefings introduce a distinct set of challenges that may make it more difficult for medical simulation educators to promote reflective discourse during the debrief. Here, faculty from the Debriefing Academy offer five practical tips to get the most out of virtual debriefings. Make sure to download the Virtual Debriefing Checklist shared here too!

17. 15 Medical Simulation Companies You Need to Know About: To continue HealthySimulation.com’s coverage of Medical Simulation companies you need to know about, here are 15 more healthcare simulation vendors that are providing high quality in-demand learning tools in the domain of clinical simulation! These simulation in healthcare vendors are important to know more about as they may offer unique products and services which can perfectly fit a simulation center‘s needs!

16. UbiSim’s Customizable Authoring Tool Creates Meaningful Virtual Reality Simulations for Nursing Students: Nursing Simulation Clinical Educators looking for a customizable authoring tool to create meaningful virtual reality simulations for nursing students will appreciate learning more about the UbiSim platform. As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on nursing education around the world, more and more nursing faculty are turning to digital learning solutions to help nursing students stay on schedule. Nurse Educator for UbiSim, Maria D’Errico, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, helps demonstrate how VR systems from the company can help healthcare simulation champions with innovative solutions now, and for the indefinite future.

15. Virtual Simulation Effectiveness Tool for Healthcare Education: According to INACSL standards, the method of participant evaluation should be established before the simulation-based experience occurs. But how do we accomplish this when working digital learning environments, either through screen based simulated patients or through more experiential virtual reality environments? This article takes a look at a modified version of the Simulation Effectiveness Tool (called SET-M) specifically redeveloped for use in medical simulation and nursing simulation VR experiences.

14. IPE vs. Multidisciplinary Education: What’s the Difference for Clinical Simulation (w/ Downloadable Tool): Defining interprofessional education (IPE) and distinguishing the term from multidisciplinary education is challenging since so many different definitions for both terms are found in the literature. However, the distinction is important when it comes to healthcare simulation — maybe so much so that we might even need a new term! This article explores the two terms and what they mean for medical simulation.

13. Remote Learning in Clinical Simulation is Here to Stay: Have You Chosen Your Digital Solution?: COVID-19 has forced simulation centers and healthcare simulation educators to reassess how simulated training scenarios are delivered to learners. Many of these institutions have made the switch to remote simulation. However, this transition requires access to a comprehensive virtual simulation solution. To rapidly deploy such technologies, HealthySimulation.com recommends considering the VRpatients application as an ideal remote physiologically-based clinical simulation training platform that allows learners to remotely interview, assess, diagnose and treat patients in real-time.

12. The Best Ways to Reopen a Simulation Center During COVID-19: Healthcare Simulation plays a significant role in the education and ongoing training of healthcare professionals — and should NOT be shut down just because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, Kim Baily PhD, MSN, RN, CNE, previous Simulation Coordinator for Los Angeles Harbor College and Director of Nursing for El Camino College,reviews some key new research to provide us some important tips for reopening clinical simulation programs and sim labs during the global pandemic.

11. How to Use Clinical Simulation to Train for Transgender Patient Care w/ Scenario Template: While transgender patients make up only a small fraction of the population, they number of persons increasing their visibility in society is increasing — but are frequently surveyed as being misunderstood or mistreated by healthcare professionals. Medical simulation clearly provides a powerful opportunity for educators to introduce learners to simulated patients who represent this minority community. Articles, research publications and scenario templates can help a program use clinical simulation to educate for the care of transgendered patients.

Top 10 Medical Simulation Articles of 2020!

10. Simterviews: Medical Simulation Experts Discuss COVID-19 Responses: The coronavirus pandemic created a number of challenges for the field of simulation since the virus’s onset in March 2020. HealthySimulation.com spoke to a number of healthcare simulation experts about the pandemic during the website’s new Simterviews series. Throughout this series, many of these experts described how their institutions have responded to COVID-19, and what obstacles and opportunities were presented as a result.

9. Virtual Debriefing in the Age of COVID-19: Virtual debriefings require simulation educators to facilitate discussions through web-based videoconferencing platforms. Facilitating debriefings through a computer interface introduces a unique set of challenges. In this webinar, Adam Cheng is Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada, discusses how the Communities of Inquiry conceptual framework can be used as a useful structure to organize practical guidance for conducting virtual debriefings, and highlight practical strategies to promote effective virtual debriefings.

8. NCSBN and INACSL Guidelines for Nursing Simulation Programs, w/ Downloadable Checklist: Creating a healthcare simulation program from scratch, sometimes with limited funding, is a daunting prospect especially when state boards of nursing and other accrediting bodies are increasingly expecting nursing simulation programs to follow recognized national standards. Simply creating a simulation lab space and coercing clinical faculty to run simulation scenarios will not create a simulation program that meets current best practice or meets the needs of learners. The good news is that there are existing guidelines that will start any program on the right setting, which is the focus of this article.

7. Transcending Racial Disparity in Healthcare Simulation Education with Limbs & Things: For many years, healthcare simulation leaders have encountered annual training that is meant to increase awareness about meeting the needs and concerns of any patient, regardless of age, skin tone, religion, gender, physical appearance, or socioeconomic status. Limbs & Things shares some of the ways healthcare simulationists can overcome racial disparity in healthcare simulation education through both leading research and realistic nursing skill task trainers which better represent minority communities.

6. Downloadable ‘Flexible Medical Simulation Operations Plan’ from M Simulation Program: Lou Clark, PhD, MFA Executive Director of the M Simulation Program at the University of Minnesota recently shares his team’s “Flexible Operations Plan in the COVID-19 Response” which is an extremely useful document for medical simulation managers looking to consider ways of ‘re-opening’ this summer. From covering core definitions of potential learning activities with online, hybrid, and on-site simulated learning activities to highlighting risks, safety protocols, and utilization guidelines — this downloadable document is an absolute must read for those operating healthcare simulation programs during the COVID-19 crisis.

5. Why Some Sim Experts Are Already Calling This The World’s Best New High-Fidelity Patient Simulator: MedVision has continued the advancement of educational excellence in quality healthcare through the development of advanced medical simulation patient manikins — just mostly outside the United States. But all that is about to change as the company is rapidly expanding globally. Working to deliver customers the training measures needed to improve patient safety outcomes, the company’s Leonardo human patient simulator extends training in basic to advanced medical procedures, clinical team development and patient case management.



4. COVID-19 Simulation Scenarios From EM SIM CASES: EM SIM CASES, which provides peer-reviewed simulation cases for Emergency Medicine programs available in FOAMed spirit, has been consistently creating and sharing COVID-19 medical simulation scenarios from the global community. Here are all the COVID-19 Simulation Scenarios from the group, with additional Coronavirus simulation scenarios listed from HealthySimulation.com’s “Comprehensive COVID-19 Simulation Resources” page.

3. Global Healthcare Simulation Community Mourns Loss of Champion Chad Epps: With a heavy heart, HealthySimulation.com reported that medical simulation expert Dr. Chad Epps, died suddenly on Friday, December 18, 2020. His unmatched service to clinical simulation through the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Simulation (CHIPS), Global Network for Simulation in Healthcare and Society for Simulation in Healthcare will never be forgotten. This article shared Chad’s memorial service information and ways his family is accepting donations made in his honor.

2. HealthySimulation.com New Webinar Platform: To meet the growing demand for virtual learning services, HealthySimulation.com launched a webinar platform designed to share informative presentations from clinical simulation leaders around the world. Discussing a variety of topics, these webinars help simulationists further their understanding of the field as a whole. The platform also offers the latest webinar program updates, activity leaderboards, and peer reviews.

1. Comprehensive COVID-19 Sim Resource List Page: This page was created to list all of the latest resources created by or in support of medical simulation programs providing education and training against the spread of COVID-19, aka the Coronavirus. Every healthcare educational and training program in the world should immediately review these clinical simulation tools to combat against the spread of the virus. From sim scenarios to research from the front lines in China, to sim lab policy ideas to online learning courses — there are the latest simulation in healthcare tools to fight COVID-19.

Looking for More “Best of” Content? Check out our Top 50 Posts from previous years!

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