“The significance of Healthcare Simulation Week is to increase awareness of the importance of simulation for health care and patient safety,” said Liana Kappus, director of simulation in the School of Nursing. “Health care simulation is a learning tool that allows our students to synthesize and apply knowledge and skills within context in the safety of a simulated environment without risk or harm to real patients.”

Simulation also assists faculty in preparing our students to enter the actual clinical environment with experience and increased confidence, she added.

“Students in the schools of nursing, medicine and health sciences benefit from participation in a myriad of simulation-based learning opportunities within the skills and simulation laboratories in the School of Nursing, in the standardized patient and assessment center in the School of Medicine and within discipline-specific skills laboratories within the School of Health Sciences.”

Each year, the simulation faculty and staff support more than 40,000 learner contact hours at the university.

Among the activities taking place this week:

• Physician assistant students caring for a patient having an allergic reaction in the emergency department

• Nursing students conducting a home visit with a veteran portrayed by a standardized patient following discharge from the hospital

• Nursing students participating in health assessment lab

• Nursing students practicing verbal de-escalation with agitated patients portrayed by standardized patients as part of the psychiatric and mental health on campus clinical.

• Nursing students conducting a home visit with a veteran portrayed by a standardized patient following discharge from the hospital

• Nursing students learning how to mobilize patients in skills laboratory