Dawn Taylor Peterson, PhD

Many of us are currently faced with the challenge of transitioning our healthcare simulation sessions to an online environment. I have attended multiple webinars and Zoom call over the past month, and we are not alone in this dilemma. Colleagues from every healthcare profession around the country and around the world are facing the same issue.

One thing has become clear as I have spent time reviewing resources and contemplating how we make this transition. Those of us who are simulationists, meaning those of us who have participated in facilitator development courses focused on best practices in the field, already have the foundational knowledge to deliver a quality online simulation experience. I would like to highlight four of these best practices that will help us when we deliver our simulation courses online.

First and foremost, delivering an online simulation experience involves the same design principles as delivering an in-person course. We must always start with the learning objectives in mind. We should focus on we want our learners to be able to do when they conclude the simulation experience. These learning objectives will drive the design of the scenario or simulated encounter. Secondly, we need to consider the best modality for our learning objectives just as we do for an in-person simulation. If our goal is recognizing signs and symptoms of a deteriorating patient, then using a virtual monitor may be necessary when we facilitate our online simulatlon. However, if we are focusing on communication skills, then we will want to make sure we are using a standardized patient in the online simulation to allow for face to face communication. Thirdly, we have to do a thorough job of prebriefing to make sure our learners understand how to interact in the online environment. The prebriefing for an online simulation includes elements that are similar to an in-person prebriefing. We need to explain how learners are to interact with the patient, whether or not they are to use the chat box, how they call for a consultant, as well as how to interact with the person who is serving in the role of the ESP. Finally, we must consider our debriefing. The same debriefing structure that we use in an in-person debriefing is suitable for an online debriefing as well. We may deal with different challenges in the online debriefing environment than we do in person; however, the strategies we use in the debriefing are the same. We should still aim to validate, normalize, and uncover frames so we can help our learners close the learning gap and carry lessons learned into the real-world practice environment.

The biggest challenge we face in facilitating an online simulation is likely familiarity with the technology that we are using to host the simulation. We also have to be extremely prepared with respect to adjusting vital signs or revealing lab results and patient findings when requested by our learners. Our team has spent the past several weeks collecting resources that will hopefully provide suggestions and help with some of these technological challenges as we transition our simulations to the online environment. The link to the spreadsheet below contains a collection of resources related to online simulation. This spreadsheet is sorted by type of resource such as article, webinar, online web-content etc. as shown in column D. If you would like to filter by Key Word, use the filter in column B to sort by key word and customize your list.

I also hope you will take the time to read the article in this newsletter by Carmel McNicholas-Bevensee. In this article, she shares how she facilitated one of her recent simulations using Zoom. As always, please reach out if you have questions or would like to brainstorm ways to transition your simulation to an online format. We are happy to help, and we love hearing from you.Feel free to email me at dtpeterson@uab.edu if you have questions about the spreadsheet or if you would like to chat.