For first responders, it’s critical to properly assess and stabilize someone who’s experiencing a medical emergency until paramedics arrive.  Lives can be at stake when someone is experiencing a drug overdose, seizure, low blood sugar or physical injury. 

While it’s common for students in the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing to engage in simulation scenarios mimicking real clinical situations, this can be expensive and requires significant resources not always available to university first response teams. Online virtual simulation games (VSGs), however, offer a similar experience, which engages learners to walk through a simulated medical crisis allowing them to experience various scenarios before having to respond in real life.  Research from Trent Nursing professor Dr. Jane Tyerman indicates the use of VSGs enhance critical thinking and improve team performance, which translates into better outcomes for the patient.

The Canadian Alliance of Nurse Educators Using Simulation (CAN-Sim) has developed an innovative, cost-effective platform to create online games. Filmed from a first-person perspective, the game walks the player through critical situations. Stopping at key moments, the learner answers multiple-choice questions of how to best respond. Each response then shows the learner why the decision was either correct or incorrect. Correct responses continue the game until the game endpoint. At the conclusion, the player can review all decision points and prints a certificate of completion.

Professor Tyerman, co-president of CAN-Sim, says there are currently more than 20 nursing-based VSGs that have been created over the past two years and more are being developed across Canada.

For the first time, a VSG is being developed for first responders and filmed at Trent.

This game is part of Amy Crane’s undergraduate nursing thesis supporting education and training for first response teams across Canada. Prof. Tyerman and Ms. Crane were at Gzowski College on April 24 with several Trent First Response volunteer students filming the new game that focused on assessment of an unresponsive student, engaging in cardiac resuscitation and communicating as a member of a team. 

Prof. Tyerman says first responders across Canada will benefit from this game and the outcomes of Amy’s research will further support the advancement of simulation in Canada.

“VSGs are an innovative method to provide standardized training to prepare learners for real clinical experiences,” she adds. “The value of simulation includes building the confidence and competence in learners to handle real-life situations in the future. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.” 

Learn more about the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing and CAN-Sim.