Abstract:

Integrating Simulation Technology into Nursing and Medical Curriculums has been widely recognized in both schools and practice sites in the last 10 years in order to implement the Institute for Medicine's mandates from the IOM Report "To Err is Human:Building a Safer Health System." (IOM, 2000) One can assist students in the health professions learn in a safe laboratory environment when there is high fidelity patient simulaton available on which to practice skills and sentinel events that would normally be seen only in practice and not frequently such as a patient who stops breathing and needs immediate intervention. This can be done in a safe and controlled environment in the lab with computer technology and simulated as well as the real thing, with debriefing and troubleshooting to enhance critical thinking thereafter. Interdisciplinary teams can work together to demystify other disciplines involved in care.

It is clear that curriculums must meet the challenge of technology improvement after the recent report from Robert Wood Johnson/IOM(2010) The Future of Nursing:Leading Change, Advancing Health, called for all nurses to have a 4 year degree by 2020 and use simulation as well as other cutting edge technologies to achieve this goal. Simulation can be utilized from the first to the advanced nursing courses to integrate skills and critical thinking into each curricular goal. Students can learn first in the lab before encountering patients and feel less stress in being prepared, their knowledge and confidence increasing according to many researchers