Abstract

Simulation learning in health care: is there evidence of transfer to the workplace?

Author(s): Mr Stephen Abbott,Ms Val Dimmock,Ms Celia Goreham,Dr Deblina Dasgupta

There is evidence that health care professionals and students enjoy and value learning from training using medium-fidelity computerised patient simulators, but less evidence that skills and learning acquired are transferred from such training to clinical areas and subsequently enhance the provision of care. This paper reports the results of focus groups where recently qualified medical and nursing students (n = 13) working in one London (UK) hospital were asked to provide evidence of transfer to their settings, some time after enacting life-threatening scenarios in interprofessional training sessions. They most frequently reported instances when interpersonal skills and understanding acquired in the training, were of direct application to the clinical areas where they worked. There was less evidence of the transfer of clinical skills and of learning not directly applicable to the current clinical area. The study was small and relied on self-reports, but nevertheless throws light on the existence and nature of knowledge transfer after interprofessional simulation training. It thus supports the use of this training method and its findings can be used to inform larger studies.