Interprofessional Clinical Simulation Program

Interprofessional Clinical Simulation Program administration includes a full time program director who is an assistant dean, an administrative director, a simulation program coordinator, a technical operations manager, a simulation technician, and a medical director. Simulation faculty represents clinical departments and services, basic science departments, and the college of nursing. The Clinical Simulation Center is located on the First floor of the Brody Health Sciences Building in the Brody Commons area. The center encompasses 21 rooms, 7,500 sq ft., with mobile, off-site in-situ simulation capability. The center is open from 8AM-5PM Monday through Friday.

The program brings together simulation-based education throughout the medical center, health sciences campus, and university. It makes use of a variety of simulation modalities for teaching, practice, performance assessment, and maintenance of skills such as:

  • Computer programs
  • Virtual reality simulators
  • Self-directed learning opportunities
  • Hands-on, procedural skills opportunities utilizing task trainers and models
  • A gross anatomy lab procedural skills experience
  • Realistic computer-enhanced, life sized high-fidelity patient simulators
  • Simulated patients
  • The use of clinical areas for an in-situ simulation experience

Simulation sessions allow faculty to emphasize patient safety concepts, teach and assess knowledge and skills, decision making, resuscitation concepts, teamwork and communication skills, and assist the trainee in building confidence and competency. The Clinical Simulation Center provides a collaborative learning environment where trainees and practicing health professionals learn, train, work, and rehearse together in a nonthreatening, simulated clinical environment.

Mission

The mission of the Interprofessional Clinical Simulation Program is to promote excellence in clinical care, promote patient, learner, and practitioner safety, and improve multidisciplinary team performance through the use of simulation modalities.

Vision

The Clinical Simulation Program will serve patients and communities of Eastern North Carolina, ECU Health, and Brody School of Medicine (BSOM). A collaborative approach across institutions and disciplines will offer an opportunity to jointly address safety and quality of care for patients in Eastern North Carolina.  The overall goal is to educate while placing an emphasis on patient, learner, and practitioner safety. This is being accomplished by the development of a regional, technologically sophisticated, interprofessional simulation-based experiential learning and assessment program in collaboration with ECU Health.

Values

Simulation Program priorities and values are aligned with those of BSOM and ECU Health:

  • Safety: provides a variety of healthcare professionals a safe, reality-based educational experience that increases competence in managing patients thus minimizing and preventing errors in the delivery of patient care.
  • Quality: will be enhanced by providing training in a simulated clinical setting allowing practice, assessment, and feedback while simultaneously promoting best practice standards and continuous innovation without risk to patients during the learning experience.
  • Satisfaction: will be increased for patients, families, staff, physicians, and trainees as evidenced by improved patient outcomes, decreased liability, and an increase in confident, knowledgeable clinicians.
  • Excellence: will be achieved by creating a safe educational environment to provide competency-based training enabling competency assessment and any necessary remediation prior to proceeding to the bedside.

Simulation

With the use of simulation as an educational modality, emergency medicine resident physicians learn and practice clinical skills in a dynamic, reality-based, risk-free environment. Simulation and procedural skills curriculum delivery is organized into a self-directed pre-course study component, didactic reinforcement, and a hands-on, simulation-based experience. Simulation sessions allow faculty to emphasize patient safety concepts, teach and assess knowledge and skills, decision making, code organization, team concepts, communication skills, and assist the resident in building confidence and competency.

The Clinical Simulation Center, located on the first floor of the Brody Health Sciences Building in close proximity to the Emergency Department, provides a collaborative learning environment where trainees and practicing health professionals learn, train, work, and rehearse together in a nonthreatening, simulated clinical environment.

Society for Simulation in Healthcare

Clinical Simulation Center’s website

 

Walter C. “Skip” Robey III, MD FACEP CHSE
Assistant Dean for Clinical Simulation
Office of Clinical Simulation
Interprofessional Clinical Simulation Program
Director, Emergency Medicine Simulation Fellowship
Clinical Associate Professor
Department of Emergency Medicine
East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine
Email: robeyw@ecu.edu