| Learning Objective #1: Identify the components required for a collaboration between a service provider (an HMO) and an educational institution to produce an effective, simulated learning center | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify at least three benefits of simulated learning environments for students and expert health care professionals |
The American health care system is in crisis-a crisis that is jeopardizing patient safety. As a panel of experts at the National Academy of Sciences has stated, “tens of thousands of people die from medical errors each year” (New York Times, November 20, 2002). Based upon the evidence documenting the threats to patient safety, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Quality Health Care in America urged “all healthcare organizations, professional groups, and private and public entities to pursue six major aims: specifically, healthcare should be safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable.” Principal among the recommendations made by this committee is the critical need to better prepare the workforce in order to reduce medical errors. To rectify this alarming trend of increasing medical errors, a university school of nursing and a metropolitan HMO have combined resources to build a state-of-the-art clinical simulated learning center for nursing students and current employees of this HMO, which includes nurses, physicians, medical residents, and allied health care workers. Using a simulated environment, learners 1)practice without harm to patients while they develop their competence; 2)have the opportunity for feedback from instructors without the presence of the patient or family members; 3)are free of distractions and time pressures that are characteristic of the real clinical world; and 4)achieve confidence that contributes to their effectiveness and efficiency in real patient encounters. Upon graduation, potential employees can claim a greater readiness for the patient care complexities found in today’s health care system. The challenges of instituting this partnership, the foundation required for building a research and teaching environment within the center, and the benefits this initiative has brought to the constituents of both institutions will be discussed.
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