UW Health Eau Claire Co-hosts Simulation Conference

A second annual health care simulation conference was held at the Chippewa Valley Technical College's Health Education Center in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This national conference utilized an ongoing collaboration between the Chippewa Valley Technical College and the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire Family Medicine Residency program. This partnership presents multiple aspects of simulation in interdisciplinary health care education. The target audience included:

• physicians,
• nurse educators,
• respiratory therapy educators,
• simulation center directors,
• administrators of nursing and allied health programs, and
• anyone using or considering medical stimulation in their educational programs.

The program's objectives included:

• outlining the benefits of simulation for education,
• identifying the potential for a simulated clinical environment for research,
• developing skills and techniques for enhancing a simulated clinical experience for interdisciplinary training,
• identifying potential products available for implementing simulation health-care education, and
• describing policies and evaluation techniques for use in simulation education.

This conference also showcased the unique virtual hospital that has been developed in the Health Education Center, which utilizes multiple human patient simulators simultaneously for the education of interdisciplinary health care teams.

Dennis Breen MD and Rick McClaflin MD, from UW Health Eau Claire Family Medicine, presented "Simulation to Teach Differential Diagnoses." Dr Breen co-presented, "'Knot' for One Specialty Area Alone: Interdisciplinary Training Using Simulation" and "Debriefing" (After a Simulation Experience).

Plans are under way for the conference in the fall of 2008.