Prospective Randomized Crossover Study of Telesimulation Versus Standard Simulation for Teaching Medical Students the Management of Critically Ill Patients

Abstract

Objective: The objective was to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of telesimulation versus standard simulation in teaching medical students the management of critically ill patients Methods: Prospective, randomized crossover study of 32 fourth-year medical students at a university medical simulation center. Students were randomized to the standard simulation (SIM) or telesimulation (TeleSIM) group between September 2014 and February 2015. The SIM group experience included participating in a live, fully immersive simulation case followed by debriefing with their SIM cohort and a live TV Internet connection to the TeleSIM group. The TeleSIM group experience included remotely observing the live simulation case at an off-site location, followed by a shared group debriefing via live TV Internet connection. Subject assessment was performed with a written evaluation tool. During a second instructional session, the students crossed over and participated in a different simulation scenario and assessment. Mean evaluation scores were calculated along with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and were analyzed via linear regression. Our secondary outcome was a survey evaluating the perceptions and attitudes held between the two simulation modalities.Results: Of 33 eligible students, 32 participated in the study (97.0%). We found no significant difference in the mean evaluation scores of the two groups: SIM group mean = 96.6% (95% CI = 94.5%-98.6%) and TeleSIM group mean = 96.8% (95% CI = 94.8%-98.9%). We also found no significant difference in the favorability of teaching modality (TeleSIM vs. SIM) on the survey. Conclusion:In our prospective randomized crossover study evaluating telesimulation versus standard simulation, we found no significant difference in evaluation scores among the two groups. There was also no significant difference found in the favorability of one teaching modality on a posteducational session survey. Our data support and highlight the capability of telesimulation to provide educational benefit to learners who do not have direct access to simulation resources.T elesimulation is a new and innovative concept and process by which telecommunication and simulation resources are utilized to provide education, training, and/or assessment to learners at an off-site location. 1 This new delivery method of content via simulation has its origins with the past decade and has seen rapid growth, being implemented in areas such as surgery, anesthesia, pediatric resuscitation, and emergency medicine. 2-9 Although telecommunication and simulation resources have been used in the past

Online-Synchronized Clinical Simulation: An efficient teaching-learning option for the COVID-19 pandemic time and beyond.

“…Clinical simulation is possibly superior to traditional passive educational practice for developing skills and integrating learning (3,21,22) because it has had an essential technological advance to emulate clinical environments (23). Nonetheless, the evidence is not conclusive with more delity of the simulators, more learning is achieved (24), and similar results were found in other studies with online simulation (14,15). This is consistent with our study.…”

“…Non-presential simulation has been developed in the last decade with terms such as remote simulation (12,13), online simulation, which can be synchronous or asynchronous (14), and telesimulation (15,16), among others. These presents promising results in student satisfaction, concept learning, and psychomotor skill development when a task trainer is available.…”

Telesimulation for remote simulation and assessment

“…Participants then crossed over to the opposite groups to serve as their own controls in a different simulation scenario. There were no significant differences between mean evaluation scores for either training modality and students had equally favorable impressions of both experiences 18 …”

Rethinking Residency Conferences in the Era of COVID‐19

“…Telesimulation has been increasingly utilized as an approach to provide education, training, or assessment of learners when they are at an off-site location. [23][24][25][26] This can be run using standardized patients or faculty facilitators over an online platform. Simulated experiences can range from breaking bad news to leading a resuscitation, and some online platforms even allow virtual breakout sessions for debrief.…”