Are Simulation Specialists in Hospitals Speaking the Right Language?

If you are leading patient simulation efforts in hospitals, are you pursuing an education paradigm or are you pursuing what hospitals seek—a performance improvement paradigm? Education speaks a uniquely different “language” from the world of hospitals. Education focuses on imparting the knowledge and skills necessary for a nurse, doctor, or other healthcare worker to demonstrate a foundational level of competency.  Hospitals focus on translating that competency into better care quality, patient safety, and operational efficiency. Certainly, hospitals expect their staff to embrace continuing education. But a hospital’s language is ultimately about performance improvement. 

Hear Paul Phrampus, MD, share his experience in using simulation to improve performance and patient outcomes at a hospital system that includes 40 hospitals in the U.S. and overseas.  Respected in simulation globally, Dr. Phrampus is the Director of the Winter Institute for Simulation, Education, and Research (WISER), and is a professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In this podcast he explains in sensible real-world terms why simulation specialists in hospitals must learn to speak a vernacular based on their institution’s “daily operational realities of practical care.” In his words, for simulationist in hospitals to succeed, their dialogue must be “about creating solutions for institutional problems—not how do we wow people with better education.”