Healthcare simulation is an ideal place to percolate and encourage meaningful connections between healthcare staff as well as improve patient care. Workplace culture improvement is possible and does happen within healthcare simulation spaces which then can be translated into the clinical care environment. Meaningful connections can be created through shared stories and challenges. This article by Erin Carn-Bennett, RN, MSN will explore the concept of healthcare simulation as a space in order to foster meaningful connections between healthcare staff.
Healthcare Simulation is Ideal to Practice Communication Skills
Clinical simulation is the ideal space to be able to practice communication skills particularly those around difficult conversations. Communication challenges and breakdown is common not only between colleagues but also with patients as well. These are often concepts explored within clinical simulation and can assist with team morale and professional relationships.
Teamwork principles are often practiced within the healthcare simulation environment. These may include skills such as how to escalate concerns, call for additional resources and work in a more time efficient manner as a team. These clinical simulation experiences are often quite vulnerable for clinical simulation participants and can be a very connection based experience as people learn about different teams and team members perspectives. Interprofessional education is particularly powerful in regards to assist with the understanding of others perspectives. This is why interprofessional education despite the challenges should ideally be prioritised to enhance team based connections and improved clinical care.
Interdepartmental Inter-professional simulation has been demonstrated to have even more power to be able to impact on team culture and improve healthcare organization working relationships. Brazil, Purdy, Alexander and Matulich (2019) in Gold Coast, Australia demonstrated that interdepartmental simulation of trauma cases had impact on relations between departments. Although this style of healthcare simulation can take a large amount of resources from multiple teams to be set up and to also go ahead, the outcomes and benefits still make this style of healthcare simulation very worthwhile.
View the HealthySimulation.com Webinar From Good to Great: Leading with Emotional Intelligence in Clinical Simulation to learn more!
Healthcare simulation is often a space to challenge assumptions and often aims to flatten hierarchy that may be present. This occurs through not only the connections that are formed in clinical simulation but also through perspectives that are shared in debriefing sessions by different team members such as in Inter-professional simulation. This can be particularly powerful between the more senior members of healthcare teams and more junior members of staff. A space can be provided if psychologically safe enough for junior members of healthcare teams to be able to bring forward their perspectives to work alongside senior members of staff. These offerings can be quite profound for more senior healthcare staff to hear and to also remember how intimidating senior members of staff can be, although usually not intentionally towards more junior members of staff.
Healthcare Simulation to Forge Meaningful Connections
Connection can also be formed through the creation of space for exploration of challenging behaviors that may have occurred in a psychologically safe space. This experience can create connections through sense making of individual behaviors and impact that may have had on frames of mind of other team members as well as their actions or inactions. Healthcare simulation is an ideal space to role model how to work together and to communicate effectively. These meaningful connections created and experiences within the clinical simulation environment can then be translated into improved clinical care for patients.
View the new HealthySimulation.com Community Nursing Simulation Group to discuss this topic with your Global Healthcare Simulation peers!
Healthcare simulation has the ability to provide protected reflective spaces that are psychologically safe for healthcare staff to be able to explore their clinical practice together as a team. This can also encourage healthcare staff to consider more reflective practices of their clinical care outside of the clinical simulation also. In diverse healthcare environments, cultural competence is required in order to be able to provide safe and effective care. Healthcare simulation can assist healthcare professionals to be able to build skills and knowledge of cultural differences to be able to reflect on various cultural backgrounds and clinical health practices. This can help clinical staff understand cultural nuances, and learn how to approach sensitive clinical and social situations with cultural awareness.
Healthcare staff are at high risk of burnout due to the emotionally draining nature of their clinical work. Healthcare simulation can be used to assist healthcare staff to be able to explore and also manage stress, grief, and emotional distress as individuals and also together as a team. These meaningful connections created in healthcare simulation experiences can be useful for resilience in the long term.
Experiential Learning is Powerful
Healthcare simulation allows participants to be able to gain awareness through experiential learning and then reflection on this experience in the clinical simulation debrief. This can guide healthcare staff to improve clinical decision-making, patient safety, and a deeper connection between healthcare staff. When clinical staff, particularly of different backgrounds are able to train together in interprofessional simulation there are many perspectives shared and deeper connections are fostered which in turn can improve clinical care for patients. Healthcare simulation offers a great environment for experienced clinical staff to be able to mentor younger or less experienced healthcare staff team members. Senior healthcare staff can have the opportunity to provide advice to more junior members of staff and to practice not only this skill for themselves but see the outcome for juniors in action too.
Healthcare simulation is an ideal space for clinical staff to be able to build and also foster meaningful connections with one another. This can improve organisational culture and also improve patient care due to improved interpersonal relationships and team work skills. The creation of psychologically safe educational environments and experiences through healthcare simulation is essential to the growth and expansion of both current and future healthcare staff across the globe.
How to Infuse Emotional Intelligence Into A Clinical Simulation Program
References:
- Brazil V, Purdy E, Alexander C, Matulich J. Improving the relational aspects of trauma care through translational simulation. Adv Simul (Lond). 2019 May 21;4:10. doi: 10.1186/s41077-019-0100-2. PMID: 31139436; PMCID: PMC6528296.
