These observations led to propose the Simu-Immersion project, aiming to develop digital and collaborative educational tools to improve training in health communication. The main objective is to give future professionals in several disciplines (nursing care, medicine, psychology) the possibility to acquire the skills to communicate with a hospitalised child and their family (also called caregiver) in a perspective of professional collaboration. Concretely, the project implemented an online e-learning platform that proposes 360° immersive scenarios co‐created with a pPP and their caregiver (their mother). These immersive scenarios, created with partner patients, provide virtual training in paediatric communication. They let students experiment clinical interactions and acquire the abilities of the verbal and non-verbal skill before being confronted to internships and/or simulation. Thanks to their interactive approach, these tools improve students’ preparation, increase collaboration, and patient-centred training, thus contributing to improving the quality of healthcare.
The Simu-Immersion project results from a research (2019-2021) conducted among 100 students in nursing care and in paediatric specialisation (HELMo-paramédical and Léonard de Vinci, Belgium), which revealed 95% of them lacked training in paediatric communication integrated to simulation. The scientific literature highlights the importance of non-technical skills to improve adherence to cares and the carer-child-parent relationship, yet they are little taught in medical and paramedical curricula (Frank et al., 2014 ; Giambra et al., 2014). The concept of partner patient, known to make learning more humane and to improve the quality of healthcare (Bauvin et al., 2017), remains under-developed in Portugal and Romania, while it is in a structuration phase in Belgium and France (Université de la Côte d’Azur). The project aims to roll out innovative educational tools that integrate immersive simulation and paediatric partner patient (pPP), to train future carers in efficient paediatric communication while meeting the requirements of higher education.