multiple student nurses and/or educators. In this situation, the students do physical assessment on each other, collect health history data, and learn appropriate communication techniques (Durham & Alden, 2008). This helps the students practice various appropriate interventions. The use of computerized technology is rapidly growing in the classrooms and in the healthcare facilities. Galloway mentions that modern simulation was developed to meet the training and risk-management needs of complex industries (Galloway, 2009). The overall strategy of the technology used in nursing education is to produce various real-life patient experiences in a risk-free environment. Thus allowing students to repeat practice sessions until one can accurately perform the task without any errors. Both simulations expose students to clinical decision making with immediate feedback from the clinical instructor and their peers. Along with the use of technology based simulation, nursing students learn by promoting a patient safety environment through education.
In the Institute of Medicine report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health Care System, mentions that simulation training is recommended as one strategy that can be used to prevent errors in the clinical setting (Kohn, 2000). The report states that “… health care organizations and teaching institutions should participate in the development and use of simulation for training novice practitioners, problem solving, and crisis management, especially when new and potentially hazardous procedures and equipment are introduced” (Kohn, 2000, p. 179). There are multiple aspects of patient safety that can be integrated with the use of the simulation in part of nursing education, such as role-paying and situational based. With the use of simulation, it enhances patient safety to optimize the outcomes by allowing nursing students to practice skills in a safe, controlled environment, without potential risk to a “live” patient. In simulation, these errors are allowed and corrected to ensure safety of the patients in class and in the real
world.
The overall experienced gained prior to working within the medical field. A nursing student learns to gather essential and accurate information on the patient, perform procedures competently, communicate effectively, and demonstrate a safe and caring environment. All of these help the student nurses gain confidence and knowledge on how to act in certain situation. The simulation can create different scenarios, thus exposing nursing students to diverse patient conditions to gain experience. Most importantly, the simulation experience stresses the importance of teamwork, such as interprofessionals, within the healthcare field when providing care for patients by allowing the nursing students to practice as a team member. Thus, allowing nursing students to determine appropriate nursing interventions, and implement orders from the health care provider efficiently and accurately.
Simulation is a benefit to nursing students by practicing in various simulation-type situations, being able to provide a patient safety environment, and the experience gained from practice placed into the real world situation. In creating realistic scenarios to guide and instruct student nurses and other healthcare professionals is a valuable part of the education process. Simulations lay the path for professional practice for experiences that are crucial for continuing to a level of competence and beyond.