Resorting to simulation in health has become common use in hospital and training centres. Currently, we observe compartmentalisation in its use in various fields (everyone works with their own objectives) and a lack of tools to assess the impact of the simulation in learning skills required for an optimal care of the patients. This project proposes to work on two original approaches. Firstly, it promotes collaboration between learners and health professionals so that they can work together to the development of simulation scenarios that will benefit both initial training and the improvement of professional practices on the field. Secondly, it investigates the development and validation of simulation scenarios as well as learning achieved and their impact on practices. Concretely, inside a hospital service, learners, in collaboration with professionals of that service, will identify a dominating issue within that service. Students and trainers will work to translate this issue into simulation scenarios paying particular attention to three aspects: documenting the case and solutions proposed through conclusive data (EBN, EBM…), developing clinical judgement and multidisciplinary communication skills. After testing the cases during training, simulation sessions conducted by the students for professionals will help co-build health protocols referenced by conclusive data directly useful to the hospital field. During this process, particular attention will be dedicated to the learning achieved and its impact on professional practices. The project will end with an international symposium to disseminate its results and ensure the durability of the communities to share and analyse practices in health simulation. Such a community made up of health professionals from training institutions, simulation centres and hospital institutions will support the development of skills in health, aiming at lifelong learning.
Initial medical and paramedical training as well as healthcare professionals’ continuing training aim to teach technical and non-technical competences and clinical judgement. To reach those objectives, simulation in healthcare based on the use of low, middle and high fidelity dummies is an efficient educational practice to train healthcare professionals. The project aims to improve professional competences in order to increase the quality of healthcare through the construction of evidence-based validated simulation scenarios and healthcare protocols (Evidence Based Nursing/Medicine) submitted to professionals. Three target groups are involved: students, initial and continuing teachers/trainers, and carers in health services. The project is innovative in its partnership between initial (para) medical training learners and healthcare professionals. Besides, the project aims to develop relevant simulation tools validated by the professional area and supported by convincing EBN/EBM data. The partnership is made up of 5 institutions with expertise in simulation in healthcare (initial and continuing training): HELMo Paramédical (Belgium), project promoter, is a Haute École (non-university college) with a simulation centre since 2014. It is involved among other in the training of nursing and midwifery students as well as in a number of research projects. The University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hatieganu (Romania) is a centre of competences, practices and medical simulation in initial and continuing training. ILumens (France) is a medical university lab of education based on digital and simulation technologies with an initial and continuing training offer. The School of Nursing Care ESEnfC (Portugal) offers the oldest nursing training in the country. It uses simulation and is recognised as a collaborating centre by the WHO for clinical practice and research. It organises initial, advanced, continuing and specialised training. HEG-ISSIG (Belgium) proposes training in nursing care and has a clinical laboratory with an interactive dummy, and the technology for the self-analysis of practices. INFOREF (Belgium), specialised in digital technologies in education has expertise in European project management and coordination. The project is divided in 5 steps, each under the responsibility of one partner: 1. Structuration of the scenarios and development of scenario validation grids 2. Identification of real-life problems with professionals and development of relevant and validated scenarios about those topics. 3. Implementation of the scenarios associating learners and professionals, leading to their validation in initial and continuing training and in hospitals. Development of observation and evaluation grids to validate the scenarios. 4. Production of healthcare protocols based on convincing data and their validation by professional areas in relation to the questions raised in collaboration with learners. 5. Formalisation of the project results in the form of a methodological guide translated in all partners’ languages. All those tools are now available for free on the project website and accessible to all institutions that wish to develop simulation in healthcare. All along the project, the website was used to submit outputs and for communication between partners. During the project, partners’ meetings were organised to think together and participate in the construction and validation of the outputs. The conference organised in May 2018 in Brussels gave the opportunity to present the methodological guide, disseminate the project results and to strengthen the communities of exchanges and analysis of practices within the framework of simulation in healthcare. On the long term, the project aims to improve interprofessional cooperation in order to improve the quality of healthcare and patient care, increasing the quality of simulations in healthcare performed in initial and continuing training. It also targets the professional development of carers through the implementation of a discussion platform about simulation practices, and tighter social relationships between healthcare professionals and initial training instructors. Thanks to the project, the partnership was able to identify the main topic of a new project that targets non-technical competences, named CRM (Crisis Resource Management) through a multidisciplinary teamwork in initial medical and paramedical training.