Design of an objective assessment tool to evaluate students' basic electrical engineering skills : the OSTE

This report discusses the developmental stage of a Higher Education Academy (HEA) – Engineering Subject Centre project which concerns the designing of an objective assessment tool to evaluate students’ basic electrical engineering skills. The form of assessment is based on the principle of Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), which is an assessment method already widely adopted in healthcare education. Since it is being used in a different field, this form of OSCE has been named Objective Structured Technical Examination (OSTE). The approach used to develop the exercises included in the OSTE will be discussed. This project will ultimately look at the effectiveness of this method of finding out the basic engineering abilities of a group of students and how it could be used to gear teaching towards any important or specific weaknesses that are discovered among the group.Peer reviewe

Cost-Effective Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Simulation

©2018 Official Publication of The Simulation Society (TSS), accredited by International Society of Cardiovascular Ultrasound (ISCU). This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). For further information see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This invited review article was presented orally on the occasion of the South West Asian Chapter conference of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) held in New Delhi, India in January 2018. It has an educational focus on the topic of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which is increasingly being used as a lifesaving bridge therapy. A case is being made regarding the adage “practice makes perfect” to be considered in the context of simulation-based education to ensure patient safety. Technology-enhanced simulation-based deliberate practice should be used more commonly to support clinicians in the development of all their professional skills. This is an ethical imperative that may be addressed using low-cost simulation modalities that are sometimes proven to be as effective as more expensive approaches. Educators can now design their programs according to published best practice standards for the benefit of their learners, and ultimately the patients they care for. Simulation-based education clearly has a place and important role to play in preparing ECMO teams dealing with routine procedures as well as emergency situations. Several solution and approaches are being presented alongside innovative work currently being done in collaboration between a regional ELSO center of excellence and an academic institution. This innovative simulator is composed of several modules serving different functions required for the simulation of ECMO emergencies at a much lower cost than using the real machine and its various expensive disposable components.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Developing high-fidelity health care simulation scenarios : a guide for educators and professionals

“The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Simulation & Gaming, 42 (1), 2011, copyright SAGE Publications Ltd on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/ "The development of appropriate scenarios is critical in high-fidelity simulation training. They need to be developed to address specific learning objectives, while not preventing other learning points from emerging. Buying a patient simulator, finding a volunteertoact as the patient, or even obtaining ready-made scenarios from another simulation center are rarely insurmountable challenges. The issue often lies in how to use or adapt these for your own purpose: with your team, facilities, and resources but primarily for your learners. Published information is limited in the area of scenario preparation for health care education and continuing medical education or continuing professional development. This article is a guide for clinical tutors, standardized patient trainers, and patient simulator operators on how to script scenarios and proposes a new detailed and reusable template for writing scenarios. It contains practical sections such as how to decide on the learning objectives to be addressed, how to script and organize your scenarios, and how to pitch the suitable level of details to make the scenarios appropriately realistic.Peer reviewe

Pocket Book for Simulation Debriefing in Healthcare

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit sample portion of 'Pocket Book for Simulation Debriefing in Healthcare'. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59882-6This book is a concise manual on debriefing techniques in a clinical educational context. It presents the most popular debriefing techniques and, hence, can be used as a reference manual by educators to help them achieve their intended debriefing objectives. The overarching objective of debriefing is to promote reflection and improve patient safety awareness at an individual and a team level. This book provides clear explanations of what constitutes a valuable and effective debriefing, and presents the various approaches that can be used and how debriefing differs from feedback. It includes key recommendations on aspects that directly or indirectly impact debriefing with different populations of learners such as students or qualified healthcare professionals of various levels of seniority. This book can also be used as a survival guide for both simulation educators and clinicians during debriefings. It includes several useful sections explaining the different phases of a debriefing session, which help learners develop and consolidate their knowledge, and identify potential knowledge or performance gaps and near misses. The underlying philosophy of this book is to also promote profound respect for the trainee by using a non-offensive debriefing approach. Debriefing facilitators will appreciate the several key sentences that will help them lead and engage their learners in the various phases of expressing their emotions and analyzing their experience and actions

Ambulance service operational improvement

This document is the accepted manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in International Paramedic Practice copyright © MA Healthcare, after peer review and technical editing by the Publisher. To access the final edited version see http://www.internationaljpp.com/cgi-bin/go.pl/library/article.cgi?uid=100396;article=IPP_3_3_61_63Since the start of industrialisation in the beginning of the previous century, processes, and technology have evolved drastically. Technology that had been developed for a specific application was found to open new horizons in other domains. A good example is the use of sonar technology on military submarines which eventually found medical applications in medical imaging (Oakley, 1986). The paramedic profession is still considered to be a relatively young profession, and although the clinical scope of practice of ambulance staff has widened there have been few noticeable and significant changes in the way Ambulance Services operate as public service providers. There is, however, great variation in the way pre-hospital emergency care provision is delivered and organised from country to country due for example to historical, cultural, financial, and geographical factors. Other industries are significantly more driven by profit, hence efficiency and reliability are aspects that have a direct and measurable financial impact and it acts as a driver for further developments.Peer reviewedSubmitted Versio

Qatar Interprofessional Health Council

The QIHC was formed in September 2009 by a small group of representatives from health care education and delivery institutions in Qatar who shared a common desire for the delivery of high quality interprofessional health care education in this country. The group has developed a 3-year plan to improve interprofessional clinical education in Qatar. Plans for delivery will be described which will be facilitated by a grant awarded by the Qatar National Research Fund. Background and Description of the QIHC: The Qatar Interprofessional Healthcare Council (QIHC) was formed in 2009 by a group of representatives from the following educational and healthcare institutions: University of Calgary-Qatar School of Nursing Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar College of the North Atlantic-Qatar Qatar University College of Pharmacy Hamad Medical Corp. (public healthcare institution) Sidra Medical and Research Center (publicly funded, private healthcare facility in planning stages) QIHC’s 3-year Plan and Description of Application and Award of Grant Funding The group is made up of high-ranking representatives from each of these institutions, and meets on a monthly basis. The group initially agreed on a definition of Interprofessional Education (IPE) developed a mutually-agreed upon mission, vision, and goals. Following this the QIHC formulated a 3-year plan to embed interprofessional collaboration into healthcare education and professional practice in Qatar. The group has successfully implemented the first year’s plan and consider that their efforts have been very successful to date. Efforts included a series of workshops presented by a panel from the QIHC to be presented at each academic institution. Participants were students and faculty from the various clinical educational facilities in Qatar, and the presentations have been very well received by both students and faculty. There was very active participation by the audience in each presentation and a great deal of interest and support from both faculty and students for the future development of IPE activities among the QIHC stakeholders. Implementation of the plan to date as well as future plans will be discussed. Challenges in the formation of the country-wide IPE group will be discussed as well as a description of how these challenges were overcome. This year the QIHC applied for and was awarded a substantial grant from the Qatar National Research Fund to carry out its 3-year plan to advance IPE and improve interprofessional healthcare delivery in Qatar. This will greatly assist the QIHC in being able to successfully implement its plan. The 3-year plan and the plans to use the grant funding to accomplish this and measure its success will be described.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

ECMO simulation and beyond

© 2017 Alinier, licensee HBKU Press. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Alinier G., 'ECMO simulation and beyond', Qatar Medical Journal, 4th Annual ELSO-SWAC Conference Proceedings 2017:59 http://dx.doi.org/10.5339/qmj.2017.swacelso.59The last couple of decades has brought a lot of changes in thoughts and technology in the domain of simulation-based healthcare education, ranging from emergency preparedness using screen-based technology to the practice of precise surgical procedures with computerised simulators with haptic and performance feedback. There is a perpetually evolving educational and technological simulation continuum available to educators and clinicians promoting the practical and cognitive aspects of healthcare delivery. It is becoming an increasingly competitive market area from an industry perspective as more and more governments invest on technology to support educational initiatives and programmes in order to increase patient safety and standards of care. Although industry strives to develop more advanced and realistic simulators, it is increasingly argued that it is not necessarily linked to better learning outcomes. For an effective use of simulation as an educational approach, a key aspect is to focus on selecting the approach that best addresses the intended learning objectives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Practicalities of the adoption of simulation training in a curriculum

Over the years, the advancement of technology has enabled the commercialisation of ever more sophisticated and realistic training tools which can play a very important role in the acquisition of cognitive and practical skills. Early simulation developments started with cardiopulmonary resuscitation using the Laerdal Resusci-Ann mannequins (Lind, 1961) and the first full-scale patient simulators in the 1960s (Abrahamson & Wallace 1980). Although valuable a training tool, sophisticated mannequins come at a price that is not affordable by all institutions; however there are often ways of overcoming such obstaclesNon peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

In-situ simulation: A different approach to patient safety through immersive training

Simulation is becoming more and more popular in the field of healthcare education. The main concern for some faculty is knowing how to organise simulation training sessions when there is no simulation centre as they are not yet widely available and their cost is often prohibitive. In medical education, the pedagogic objectives are mainly aimed at improving the quality of care as well as patient safety. To that effect, a mobile training approach whereby simulation-based education is done at the point of care, outside simulation centres, is particularly appropriate. It is usually called “in-situ simulation”. This is an approach that allows training of care providers as a team in their normal working environment. It is particularly useful to observe human factors and train team members in a context that is their real working environment. This immersive training approach can be relatively low cost and enables to identify strengths and weaknesses of a healthcare system. This article reminds readers of the principle of « context specific learning » that is needed for the good implementation of simulation-based education in healthcare while highlighting the advantages, obstacles, and challenges to the development of in-situ simulation in hospitals. The objective is to make clinical simulation accessible to all clinicians for the best interests of the patient.Peer reviewe

Supporting Students' Learning Experiences through a Pocket Size Cue Card Designed around a Reflective Simulation Framework

CC-BY-NC-NDPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio