167 Advances in Simulation: Longitudinal prebriefing for successful in situ simulation

In our latest Advances in Sim collaborative episode, we talk about how to establish and sustain in situ simulation (ISS) programs on health services. Ben and Vic were joined by Susan Eller who is lead author on an important article on this topic: Leading change in practice: how “longitudinal prebriefing” nurtures and sustains in situ simulation programs. 

Susan is Associate Dean for Immersive Learning and Learning Spaces at the Center for Immersive and simulation Based learning at Stanford, and a long time friend of Simulcast. Her co-authors for this article are Jenny Rudolph, Stephanie Barwick, Sarah Janssens, and Komal Bajaj. 

In the episode we discuss the challenges for ISS: space, time, people, resources, safety; but also the opportunities: exploring work environments and the people in them, and probing systems and processes. The authors recognised the need for patient, systematic engagement with staff across healthcare institutions, and take us through their journeys in three separate ISS programs. They call their implementation approach ‘longitudinal prebriefing’. This great work is a reminder of how we need to play the ‘long game’ as simulation faculty, and to embrace ISS implementation as an organisational change challenge.