In-situ simulation: A different approach to patient safety through immersive training

Abstract

Simulation is becoming more and more popular in the field of healthcare education. The main concern for some faculty is knowing how to organise simulation training sessions when there is no simulation centre as they are not yet widely available and their cost is often prohibitive. In medical education, the pedagogic objectives are mainly aimed at improving the quality of care as well as patient safety. To that effect, a mobile training approach whereby simulation-based education is done at the point of care, outside simulation centres, is particularly appropriate. It is usually called “in-situ simulation”. This is an approach that allows training of care providers as a team in their normal working environment. It is particularly useful to observe human factors and train team members in a context that is their real working environment. This immersive training approach can be relatively low cost and enables to identify strengths and weaknesses of a healthcare system. This article reminds readers of the principle of « context specific learning » that is needed for the good implementation of simulation-based education in healthcare while highlighting the advantages, obstacles, and challenges to the development of in-situ simulation in hospitals. The objective is to make clinical simulation accessible to all clinicians for the best interests of the patient.