Abstract

Background: Maintenance of clinical skills and knowledge base has been required for some time; however, the mandatory requirement of class three credits is a more recent addition to the Royal College accreditation body. Structured, interprofessional provision of simulated patient care that targets the needs of all healthcare disciplines is the ideal setting in which to improve knowledge, skills, and thus patient care.

Objective: To improve clinician confidence, and thereby quality of patient management, in self-identified challenging scenarios. To enhance communication and teamwork skills in high-stakes situations in an interprofessional team setting.

Description of Innovation: An accredited Simulation Update Day was designed, targeting specific healthcare specialties, with the goal of updating clinical knowledge and skills while improving teamwork and communication. The simulation day comprised a morning of task trainer physical skill stations, and the afternoon was a composite of high-fidelity scenarios allowing the application of both skills learned in the morning, as well as clinical knowledge and communication and teamwork. This simulation day was accredited with the Royal College of Physicians under Class three credits. Each interprofessional specialty was also provided with structured accreditation points/credits for participation.

An expert panel of key stakeholders representing: nursing, respiratory therapy, physician assistants, paramedics, personal support staff and physicians was devised. This expert panel formulated a standardized needs assessment to be distributed to members of each specialty in order to devise skills and clinical topics deemed important for ongoing education.

Prior to the simulation day, a survey was circulated to all registered participants inquiring about levels of comfort and knowledge with the skills and topics to be covered during the update. Following the update the same survey was disseminated.

Impact: This novel update day has brought together multiple specialties for the first time to provide accredited learning as a team. The increase in clinician confidence in difficult scenarios translates into improvement in patient care.