Students and faculty in the nursing department at Missouri State University-West Plains celebrated the third annual Global Healthcare Simulation Week Sept. 16-20.
The event is sponsored by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH). It is designed to increase public awareness of the importance of simulation in healthcare training and outcomes, according to Carla Huddleston, assistant professor of nursing and simulation/clinical coordinator.
“Healthcare simulation is a learning tool that recreates a clinical environment to allow students to experience a realistic healthcare event,” she explained. “The purpose of healthcare simulation is to teach new skills, refresh old ones and improve the delivery of safe and effective patient care.”
Simulation lab
Missouri State-West Plains’ student nurses train on such equipment in the university’s simulation lab in Looney Hall. Funded with a $250,000 grant assisted by former U.S. Congresswoman JoAnn Emerson in 2011, the simulation lab serves, on average, 75 to 80 students and conducts 25 to 30 high quality simulations each semester, Huddleston said.
Each student rotates through the simulation lab three to four times each semester beginning in the second semester of their first year, she added.
Improving patient care
Healthcare Simulation Week celebrates professionals who use healthcare simulation to improve the safety, effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare delivery, she said.
“New methods and technologies are emerging that present enhanced opportunities to improve patient care,” Huddleston explained. “As a result, it is an important field in which many healthcare professionals are finding a lifelong career.”
“Healthcare simulation continues to grow at an extraordinary rate,” SSH President KT Waxman said in a press release from the organization. “An increasing number of professionals in the healthcare industry are waking up to simulation’s ability to help individuals and organizations improve patient care, which is so great to witness. We want to celebrate both that increased role and all healthcare simulation professionals.”
For more information about the nursing program at Missouri State-West Plains, call 417-255-7739 or email WPNursing@MissouriState.edu.