Telesimulation: An Innovative Tool for Health Professions Education

Telesimulation is a new and innovative concept and process that has been used to provide education, training, and assessment in health‐related fields such as medicine. This new area of simulation, and its terminology, has its origins within the past decade. The face validity and ability to provide the benefits of simulation education to learners at off‐site locations has allowed the wide and rapid adoption of telesimulation in the field of medical education. Telesimulation has been implemented in areas such as pediatric resuscitation, surgery, emergency medicine, ultrasound‐guided regional anesthesia in anesthesiology, nursing, and neurosurgery. However, its rapid expansion and current use has outgrown its recent description less than a decade ago. To date, there is no unifying definition of telesimulation that encompasses all the areas where it has been used while simultaneously allowing for growth and expansion in this field of study. This article has two main objectives. The first objective is to provide a comprehensive and unifying definition of telesimulation that encompasses all the areas where it has been used while allowing for growth and expansion in the field of study. The secondary objective is to describe the utility of telesimulation for emergency medicine educators in the context of the current evidence to serve as a background and framework that educators may use when considering creating educational programs that incorporate telecommunication and simulation resources. This article is complementary to the large group presentation where this new comprehensive and unifying definition was introduced to the simulation community at the International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare in January 2016.

[1]  Oscar Henao,et al.  Feasibility of remote administration of the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) skills test , 2013, Surgical Endoscopy.

[2]  P. Sengupta,et al.  Feasibility of intercity and trans-Atlantic telerobotic remote ultrasound: assessment facilitated by a nondedicated bandwidth connection. , 2014, JACC Cardiovascular Imaging.

[3]  Search Joe,et al.  Invisible Force: Farmers' Mental Models and How They Influence Learning and Actions , 2005 .

[4]  J. Sargeant.  Medical education for rural areas: opportunities and challenges for information and communications technologies. , 2005, Journal of postgraduate medicine.

[5]  Jason J Zigmont,et al.  Theoretical foundations of learning through simulation. , 2011, Seminars in perinatology.

[6]  Maurice Mars,et al.  A systematic review of the effectiveness of videoconference-based tele-education for medical and nursing education. , 2012, Worldviews on evidence-based nursing.

[7]  V. Chan,et al.  Teaching ultrasound‐guided regional anesthesia remotely: a feasibility study , 2016, Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica.

[8]  M Hashizume,et al.  Tele‐surgery simulation with a patient organ model for robotic surgery training , 2005, The international journal of medical robotics + computer assisted surgery : MRCAS.

[9]  H. Karamanoukian,et al.  The telecommunication revolution in the medical field: present applications and future perspective. , 2003, Current surgery.

[10]  Allan Okrainec,et al.  Remote evaluation of laparoscopic performance using the global operative assessment of laparoscopic skills , 2013, Surgical Endoscopy.

[11]  Hossam Hamdy,et al.  Adult learning theories: Implications for learning and teaching in medical education: AMEE Guide No. 83 , 2013, Medical teacher.

[12]  T. Haile-Mariam,et al.  Using distance-based technologies for emergency medicine training and education. , 2005, Emergency medicine clinics of North America.

[13]  R. MacKinnon,et al.  Board 152 - Program Innovations Abstract Transcontinental Telesimulation: The Global Proliferation of the Managing Emergencies in Paediatric Anaesthesia (MEPA) Course (Submission #234) , 2013 .

[14]  Oscar Henao,et al.  Telesimulation: an innovative and effective tool for teaching novel intraosseous insertion techniques in developing countries. , 2011, Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

[15]  D Treloar,et al.  On-site and distance education of emergency medicine personnel with a human patient simulator. , 2001, Military medicine.

[16]  Oscar Henao,et al.  Telesimulation: an effective method for teaching the fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery in resource-restricted countries , 2010, Surgical Endoscopy.

[17]  Simon Richir,et al.  Transatlantic medical education: preliminary data on distance-based high-fidelity human patient simulation training. , 2003, Studies in health technology and informatics.

[18]  M. Bould,et al.  The Managing Emergencies in Paediatric Anaesthesia global rating scale is a reliable tool for simulation‐based assessment in pediatric anesthesia crisis management , 2013, Paediatric anaesthesia.

[19]  Jorge Alberto Vélez Beltrán,et al.  Virtual surgical tele-simulations in ophthalmology , 2003, CARS.

[20]  Jodee Anderson,et al.  Educational Perspectives: Telesimulation in Neonatal Resuscitation , 2014 .

[21]  Naoki Suzuki,et al.  Tele-surgical simulation system for training in the use of da Vinci surgery. , 2005, Studies in health technology and informatics.

[22]  Izet Masic,et al.  E-Learning as New Method of Medical Education , 2008, Acta informatica medica : AIM : journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia & Herzegovina : casopis Drustva za medicinsku informatiku BiH.

[23]  Allan Okrainec,et al.  Surgical simulation in Africa: the feasibility and impact of a 3-day fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery course , 2009, Surgical Endoscopy.

[24]  R. Reznick,et al.  Teaching surgical skills--changes in the wind. , 2006, The New England journal of medicine.

[25]  R. Ahmed,et al.  Teledebriefing: connecting learners to faculty members , 2014, The clinical teacher.

[26]  E. Deci,et al.  Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[27]  A. Okrainec,et al.  [Fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery in Colombia using telesimulation: an effective educational tool for distance learning]. , 2013, Biomedica : revista del Instituto Nacional de Salud.

[28]  Oscar Henao,et al.  Fundamentos de cirugía laparoscópica en Colombia con telesimulación: una herramienta adicional para la formación integral de cirujanos , 2012 .

[29]  Naoki Suzuki,et al.  Tele-training simulation for the surgical robot system "da Vinci" , 2004, CARS.