NIMDTA delivers ‘Inspirational’ Simulation Strategy Day!
NIMDTA hosted its ‘Simulation Strategy Day’ to a capacity venue on Wednesday 31st January 2024. The event brought together a breadth of attendee’s with representation from the Department of Health NI, DME’s, Simulation leads and enthusiasts from across Northern Ireland.
Dr Camille Harron, Postgraduate Medical Dean and Director of Education NIMDTA, delivered the welcome address and outlined that the aim of the day was to insert drive into the strategy for simulation and explore how NIMDTA will work with its educators and strategic partners to connect and improve the collective efforts towards progressing Simulation Based Education (SBE).
Dr Harron promoted the opportunity to think beyond our horizons, of what simulation can bring into our workplace, our educational goals, and who will be the important people to help us. Dr Harron also highlighted that training and service remain closely aligned and, by embracing modern methods and sharing knowledge this will ultimately lead to improved patient care.
Dr Nicola Weatherup NIMDTA Simulation Lead, EM Consultant and EM Head of School commenced the key note speeches by sharing her extensive journey in SBE through life as a trainee in Scotland, Consultant life and moving back to NI, where she requested to take up a Simulation Lead role in 2013. She spoke about the development of Northern Ireland Simulation and Human Factors Network (NISHFN), which aims to support and connect those with an interest in simulation and human factors training. Dr Weatherup reflected on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on our healthcare service, highlighting the remarkable use of Simulation to aid new teams, new equipment, new environments and new ways of working during this unprecedented time. She enlightened us about the increase in SBE within many training curricula since 2021 and how trainees are now visionary in developing SBE initiatives across the region, through NIMDTA’s Simulation Champions, SUCCEED and ADEPT fellow posts. She finished with presenting the SBE Strategy for NI and correlated the importance of SBE with our HSC values.
Dr Julie Mardon Clinical Director of Integration, Clinical Director of the Scottish Centre of Simulation and Clinical Human Factors, Lead for medical peer support flew from Scotland to be a part of the event. She shared her wealth of knowledge in the use of SBE and about how we can use simulation as a transformative tool to enable a learning culture within our organisation. She shared impressive results of how Simulation was used to improve targets within Sepsis 6 and delirium management within ED. Dr Mardon also reviewed the use of translational simulation and gave examples of how they have utilised themes from IR1s to incorporate team learning and service design. She also shared with us collaborative work they have been doing with refugee doctors and NES, as well as the use of mastery learning within integrated community services.
Colette Laws Chapman ASPiH president and Deputy Director for Simulation at Guys and St Thomas’s Foundation Trust came from London to be a part of the event and presented the new ASPiH Standards, which were launched on 8th November 2023. Colette explained the purpose and development process of these standards highlighting the contributors and endorsers of them. She focused on the Core Values of ASPiH and emphasized the aims of meeting the current needs of simulation practitioners and learners, reflecting on the evolution of simulation practice and accounted for emerging technologies. She addressed themes within SBE of interprofessional simulation, sustainability and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
Emma Magowan Clinical Education Facilitator and ED nurse shared her own journey in SBE, spotlighting Interprofessional simulation and the focus on creating a psychologically safe learning environment for staff to learn together. She reinforced the importance of building a team, building a culture, data collection, real time feedback and hared learning.
Professor Marian Traynor Associate Dean of Education, Faculty of Medicine, health and Life Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) celebrated the KN Cheun SK Chin Intersim Centre at QUB within her keynote address. She shared the unique attributes of Intersim: championing Interprofessional Education, the wide range of learning contexts and cutting-edge technology. She gave emphasis to the inaugural Intersim Conference in June 2023 and also shared that the Interprofessional Healthcare Student Team QUB won were winners of the All Ireland Healthcare Challenge 2022.
The event also had a range of speakers during two panel discussions, from trainee’s sharing their inspirational SBE projects across a range of practice to presentations from Simulation Enthusiasts in MedEdWest and the School of Paediatrics.
The Strategy Workshop also comprised of two breakout sessions where attendee’s actively engaged in discussions around the benefits and challenges of embedding SBE, along with developing strategy’s in progressing SBE across the region.
In the closing remarks of the event, Dr Harron thanked all the contributors most notably Dr Weatherup and Dr Bronagh McCarragher, current ADEPT Fellow with NIMDTA, who produced and delivered a fantastic programme with many aspirational outcomes.
Recordings of the event keynote speeches will be available on LMS very soon, however should you have any queries regarding the Strategy for Simulation, please contact: educationmanagement@hscni.net
