For more than a decade, the NLN has promoted simulation as a teaching methodology to prepare nurses for practice across the continuum of care in today's complex health care environment. That experience, reinforced by the League's mission and core values, furnishes a strong foundation to address the challenges and opportunities arising from the use of simulation in nursing education.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) landmark, multisite, longitudinal study explored the role and outcomes of simulation in pre-licensure clinical nursing education in the United States (Hayden, Smiley, Alexander, Kardong-Edgren, & Jeffries, 2014). The NLN endorses the study findings, which concluded that there is substantial evidence that simulation can be substituted for up to 50 percent of traditional clinical experiences under conditions comparable to those described in the study.
Today, simulation is more than a way to teach and practice psychomotor skills. It is an evidence-based strategy to facilitate high quality experiences that foster thinking and clinical reasoning skills for students. The emphasis is on creating contextual learning environments that replicate crucial practice situations. Now more than ever - with changes in health care access and technological advances in health care delivery, the increasing complexity of patient care, and the growing lack of clinical placements for students - it is imperative to embed quality simulation experiences throughout the program of learning.
NLN CALL TO ACTION
The NLN has identified key strategies and resources to address the need for a more contextual, experiential type of learning through simulation:
* Core and advanced courses in simulation and debriefing, along with other resources and an annotated bibliography, are available on the Simulation Innovation Resouce Center (SIRC). SIRC resouces enable faculty to acquire the foundational knowledge needed to use simulations as a valuable learning tool. See http://sirc.nln.org.
* The NLN Advancing Care Excellence for Seniors (ACE.S) and Veterans (ACE.V) web pages offer free, teaching-ready unfolding cases based in simulation. See both http://www.nln.org/professional-development-programs/teaching-resources/aging and http://www.nln.org/professional-development-programs/teaching-resources/veterans.
* Collaborative efforts have resulted in the creation of simulation scenario sets and a virtual simulation product, vSim for Nursing. See http://www.mysimcenter.com/en-US/SimStoreHome.aspx and http://www.nln.org/centers-for-nursing-education/nln-center-for-innovation-in-si.
* The NLN's Leadership Institute offers a yearlong leadership program for simulation educators. See http://www.nln.org/professional-development-programs/leadership-programs/leaders.
RECOMMENDATIONS
For Deans, Directors, Chairs of Nursing Programs
* Create strategic partnerships with schools and clinical agencies to capitalize on shared simulation resources.
* Ensure an adequate number of dedicated simulation faculty with training and expertise in the pedagogy of simulation.
* Include operational support staff as a part of the simulation team.
* Budget annually for faculty development in simulation pedagogy and theory-based debriefing.
* Support the development of simulation leaders among the faculty.
The full text of this NLN Vision is online:
http://www.nln.org/about/position-statements/nln-living-documents
For Nurse Faculty
* Purposefully integrate simulation into the curriculum with clear connections toward achievement of student learning outcomes.
* Incorporate simulation standards of practice in the design, implementation, and evaluation of simulation-based experiences.
* Use evidence-based methods consistently to ensure competence in debriefing.
* Partner with faculty from other disciplines to create interprofessional simulation experiences.
* Pursue the development of expertise as a simulation leader.
For the NLN
* Provide professional development resources for faculty to:
* Incorporate standards of practice in simulation pedagogy and theory-based debriefing
* Integrate simulation into nursing curricula
* Enhance faculty expertise in the use of theory-based debriefing in simulation.
* Evaluate simulation experiences using valid and reliable instruments.
* Collaborate with key stakeholders (e.g., International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning [INACSL], Society for Simulation in Healthcare [SSH], NCSBN, Laerdal Medical, Wolters Kluwer) to develop and disseminate best practices in the use of simulation in teaching and learning and integrate debriefing into learning activities throughout the curriculum to better engage students in the learning process.
* Provide opportunities for the development of simulation research scholars through the NLN Center for Innovation in Simulation and Technology. See http://www.nln.org/centers-for-nursing-education/nln-center-for-innovation-in-si.
* Increase support of multisite research studies in simulation pedagogy.
* Partner with simulation scholars and nurse theorists to study and further develop the NLN/Jeffries Framework.
REFERENCE