Use of Virtually Facilitated Simulation to Improve COVID-19 Preparedness in Rural and Remote Canada.

Background: The Alberta Health Services' Provincial Simulation Program (eSIM) is Canada's largest simulation program. The eSIM mobile simulation program specializes in delivering simulation-based education (SBE) to rural and remote communities (RRC). During the COVID-19 pandemic, a quality improvement project involving rapid cycle virtually facilitated simulation (VFS) for COVID-19 airway management and health systems preparedness in RRC was successfully implemented.

Commissioning Clinical Spaces During a Pandemic: Merging Methodologies of Human Factors and Simulation.

Objectives: The objective of this case study is to demonstrate the value of applying tabletop and simulation techniques to highlight high-risk, high-impact outcomes and organizational recommendations in the commissioning of a new clinical spaces.

Purpose/aim: Generalizability of lessons learned from this case study aim to support other health organizations in commissioning of clinical spaces during communicable disease outbreaks.

Background: COVID-19 challenged our healthcare system, requiring teams to prepare in a short span of time.

Qualitative Examination of Shared Decision-Making in Canada's Largest Health System: More Work to be Done : Shared Decision-Making-More Work to be Done.

: Shared Decision-Making (SDM) is an inclusive approach where patients and providers work in partnership to make health care decisions that are grounded in clinical best practice and align with patient preferences and values. Despite a growing recognition that SDM can lead to improved outcomes and reductions in unnecessary health investigations, tensions exist between patient agency and a historically paternalistic model of health care. As an evolving ideology, the Research Team sought to better understand the current state, challenges, and implementation opportunities of SDM practices across the health system.

Building impactful systems-focused simulations: integrating change and project management frameworks into the pre-work phase.

Healthcare organizations strive to deliver safe, high-quality, efficient care. These complex systems frequently harbor gaps, which if unmitigated, could result in harm. Systems-focused simulation (SFS) projects, which include systems-focused debriefing (SFD), if well designed and executed, can proactively and comprehensively identify gaps and test and improve systems, enabling institutions to improve safety and quality before patients and staff are placed at risk.

Correction to: COVID-19 pandemic preparation: using simulation for systems-based learning to prepare the largest healthcare workforce and system in Canada.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s41077-020-00138-w.].

COVID-19 pandemic preparation: using simulation for systems-based learning to prepare the largest healthcare workforce and system in Canada.

Healthcare resources have been strained to previously unforeseeable limits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. This has prompted the emergence of critical just-in-time COVID-19 education, including rapid simulation preparedness, evaluation and training across all healthcare sectors. Simulation has been proven to be pivotal for both healthcare provider learning and systems integration in the context of testing and integrating new processes, workflows, and rapid changes to practice (e.

Summative Assessment of Interprofessional "Collaborative Practice" Skills in Graduating Medical Students: A Validity Argument.

Purpose: To describe how the authors developed an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) station to assess aspects of collaborative practice competency and how they then assessed validity using Kane's framework.

Method: After piloting the collaborative practice OSCE station in 2015 and 2016, this was introduced at the Cumming School of Medicine in 2017. One hundred fifty-five students from the class of 2017 and 22 students from the class of 2018 participated.

Commissioning simulations to test new healthcare facilities: a proactive and innovative approach to healthcare system safety.

Development and reconstruction of new healthcare facilities and spaces has the potential for latent safety threats to emerge, specifically unintentional harm that could affect actual patients once the facility opens, such as missing equipment, inefficient setup, or insufficient space for procedures. Process-orientated simulation and testing is a novel innovation in healthcare. The aim of process-orientated simulations and debriefing is to examine the process of care, rather than the outcome of care.

PEARLS for Systems Integration: A Modified PEARLS Framework for Debriefing Systems-Focused Simulations.

Modern healthcare organizations strive for continuous improvement in systems and processes to ensure safe, effective, and cost-conscious patient care. However, systems failures and inefficiencies lurk in every organization, often emerging only after patients have experienced harm or delays. Simulation and debriefing, focused on identifying systems gaps, can proactively lead to improvements in safety and quality.

Goals, Recommendations, and the How-To Strategies for Developing and Facilitating Patient Safety and System Integration Simulations.

Purpose: The aim of this article is to outline overall goals, recommendations, and provide practical How-To strategies for developing and facilitating patient safety and system integration (PSSI) simulations for healthcare team members and organizations.

Background: Simulation is increasingly being used as a quality improvement tool to better understand the tasks, environments, and processes that support the delivery of healthcare services. These PSSI simulations paired with system-focused debriefing can occur prior to implementing a new process or workflow to proactively identify system issues.

An experimental study on the impact of clinical interruptions on simulated trainee performances of central venous catheterization.

Background: Interruptions are common in the healthcare setting. This experimental study compares the effects of interruptions on simulated performances of central venous catheterization during a highly versus minimally complex portion of the task.

Methods: Twenty-six residents were assigned to interruptions during tasks that are (1) highly complex: establishing ultrasound-guided venous access (experimental group,  = 15) or (2) minimally complex: skin cleansing (control group,  = 11).

A descriptive case study of the changing nature of nurses' work: The impact of managing infectious diseases requiring isolation.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, and Clostridium difficile have increased in health care facilities worldwide. The complexity of caring for patients with infectious comorbidities has impacted nurses' daily work. A mixed-methods study at 1 community hospital in Ontario, Canada, demonstrated the cumulative effect of additional time spent on infection prevention and control measures resulted in trade-offs, cutting corners, and raised concerns about the quality and continuity of care.

Are we at risk of groupthink in our approach to teamwork interventions in health care?

Context: The incidence of medical error, adverse clinical events and poor quality health care is unacceptably high and there are data to suggest that poor coordination of care, or teamwork, contributes to adverse outcomes. So, can we assume that increased collaboration in multidisciplinary teams improves performance and health care outcomes for patients?

Methods: In this essay, the authors discuss some reasons why we should not presume that collective decision making leads to better decisions and collaborative care results in better health care outcomes.

Results: Despite an exponential increase in interventions designed to improve teamwork and interprofessional education (IPE), we are still lacking good quality data on whether these interventions improve important outcomes.

Impact of peer pressure on accuracy of reporting vital signs: An interprofessional comparison between nursing and medical students.

The hierarchical relationship between nursing and medicine has long been known, yet its direct influence on procedural tasks has yet to be considered. Drawing on the theory of conformity from social psychology, we suggest that nursing students are likely to report incorrect information in response to subtle social pressures imposed by medical students. Second-year medical and third-year nursing students took vital signs readings from a patient simulator.

The good and bad of group conformity: a call for a new programme of research in medical education.

Context: Given that a significant portion of medical education occurs in various social settings (small groups, large classes, clinical environments), it is critical to examine how group members interact. One type of influence on these interactions is conformity, whereby an individual changes his or her own behaviour to match incorrect responses of others in a group. Conformity to peer pressure has been replicated in experimental research conducted in many countries over the last 60 years.

Twelve tips to guide effective participant recruitment for interprofessional education research.

Background: The success of research in interprofessional education is largely due to the participation of students. Their recruitment is, however, perhaps the most challenging part of any study, and, yet, is a key determinant of the results.

Aim: The aim of this article is to provide a "how to guide" for medical education researchers to facilitate the recruitment of students across health professions.