Case Scenarios and Simulations as Techniques to Facilitate Asthma Education and Team Building Among Health Care Students

Abstract

Health professionals face increasing demands to work across discipline lines to improve patient outcomes. Learning interdisciplinary communication skills at the preprofessional level is crucial to nursing and allied health student preparation. Today’s students are technologically savvy, tired of traditional education, and often have diverse learning needs. The purpose of the pilot study was to examine the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary case study and simulation model to educate students enrolled in various health professions about asthma care and patient education. The interdisciplinary case study simulation model showed a significant advantage for both student enjoyment of the learning process and students’ confidence to coordinate care across disciplines.

Simulation Education Approaches to Enhance Collaborative Healthcare: A Best Practices Review

“…Interprofessional simulation education as an approach to IPE has gained increasing attention in the academic setting, in part, prompted by challenges healthcare profession programs face in providing learners with interprofessional collaboration experiences in clinical and community settings (Baker et al, 2008;Dagnone, McGraw, Pulling, & Patteson, 2008;Dillon, Noble, & Kaplan, 2009;Reese, Jefferies, & Engum, 2010). Advantages of interprofessional simulation education include the opportunity to design learning experiences that are tailored to curricula and learning needs before learners move into clinical or community settings, thereby enhancing the potential for improvements to patient safety and patient outcomes while decreasing the need for intense faculty supervision in practice settings (McCormick, Burton, & Werts, 2010). Simulation is an educational technique that supports active learning, where learners are immersed in experiences that mimic real practice situations.…”

Use of simulation technology in teaching nursing clinical skills

“…On the other hand, patient numbers are increasing, diseases become chronic and more complex as the world's population is aging, making the demand for better-prepared healthcare students urgent (Nestel and Kneebone, 2010). A solution to the problem could be the use of simulation during graduate studies where faculty can teach and evaluate student clinical skills and then students could have clinical practice without the need for intense supervision by their teachers (McCormick et al, 2010;Nestel and Kneebone, 2010). Alas, only two nursing schools out of nine Greek universities and applied universities have the privilege to have high-fidelity equipment/mannequins and none a simulation classroom or environment.…”