Patient Simulators Allow For Participant-Driven Learning

Incorporating human patient simulators into hospital-based education programs gives students a chance to test their knowledge in life-like situations.

“Instead of just listening to you and seeing what you have on the board, they’re getting their hands in there,” said Paula Garvey at Monday’s session “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Real: Using Human Patient Simulation.”

Garvey and Sherri Harkless, both of The Ohio State University Medical Center, discussed the educational benefits of introducing human patient simulators into instruction in failure to rescue, code blue readiness and ACLS situations. Garvey said she uses simulators most often in teaching students how to care for patients with chest pain and those in respiratory distress and cardiac arrest.

Human patient simulators run using a computer program with pre-packaged clinical situations. The patients respond physiologically to decisions made by the instructor or student regarding care. Depending on the model, the mannequins can blink, breathe and perspire.

Benefits

The most important aspect of teaching with a human patient simulator is the element of realism.

“Nurses are expected to have a strong foundation of physical assessment skills, technical skills and critical thinking,” Harkless said. Working with a human patient simulator in a safe environment, students are able to react to life-like clinical situations using critical thinking to solve problems.

In addition, students learn nontechnical skills like collaboration, leadership, communication and professionalism. Harkless and Garvey will sometimes use simulators to teach cooperation when dealing with staff issues.

“As nurses, we’ve been charged by ANCC to look at improving physician-nurse collaborative education to improve patient outcomes, and this is one of our goals: to develop a simulation scenario that involves nurses and physicians,” Garvey said.

The sometimes unexpected element of teaching with simulation is the emotional involvement of the students. Patients can experience fear and excitement dealing with life-like mannequins in a way they wouldn’t in a classroom setting.

“It is so real to them that they are actually disappointed if the mannequin ‘dies’ or if they make a mistake. They’re upset. They’re ashamed. They’re embarrassed,” Garvey said.

Most importantly, using a human patient simulator improves the quality of care and safety for real patients, Harkless said.

Incorporating patient simulators

Garvey stressed the importance of laying out goals before introducing human patient simulation to nursing classes. Teachers should know which types of skills he or she plans to emphasize during instruction.

Learning models can also vary. The self-directed model allows students to make their own decisions regarding patient care with minimal patient input, while instructors can demonstrate the tasks they wish to see students perform with an instructor-modeled learning technique.

Some instructors choose to frame sessions with briefings. Pre-briefings set down ground rules and work to establish a non-threatening environment for students. At this time, the instructor should set up a very specific patient scenario and crisis event.

“You want to create a whole person for them,” Garvey said, noting that fabricated patient charts and medical histories are useful.

Debriefings allow the students to reflect on their experiences and get feedback from fellow students, as well as the instructor.