High Fidelity Simulation Use in Nursing Education

April 23, 2025December 28, 2024 by AfzaLalDin

The High Fidelity Simulation Use in Nursing Education. High-fidelity simulation is a valuable teaching method in nursing education that uses realistic, computerized patient simulators to create safe and immersive learning experiences.

It allows students to practice clinical skills and decision-making in a controlled environment, mimicking real-life patient scenarios. This approach can enhance critical thinking, clinical judgment, and overall competence in nursing students.

Use of HighFidelity Simulation in Nursing Education

Use of high-fidelity simulation has become essential method in teaching in nursing education, provision of realistic and immersive learning environment to students. Nursing students can apply theoretical knowledge in professional practice, develop clinical decision-making skills, and indulge in reflective learning instead of putting actual patients at risk in healthcare settings.

What are High Fidelity Simulators?

The use of advanced technology in nursing education, when computerized manikin and realistic setting to mimic a real-life clinical settings is referred as high fidelity simulation. A high-level realism by replicating complex patient conditions and responses, allows nursing students to perform like realistic patient care scenarios on these simulators. High fidelity simulation are computerized manikins that simulate vital signs, physiological responses, and even conversation with caregivers, it makes them ideal for the training of nursing students and professionals in various skills.

Nursing Education and Role of High-Fidelity Simulation

The gaps between theoretical learning and real-world practice in nursing education is bridged by the high-fidelity simulation. In current health education scenarios, nursing programs increasingly focus on competency-based education, HFS is a source for ensuring that the students are capable to implement the classroom knowledge in the nursing practices in clinical settings or not.

Clinical Skills Enhancement

Simulation allows nursing students to practice clinical skills and abilities, make mistakes that are not fatal to patients, and repeat the process (more than once) to master it.

Developing Clinical Decision-Making and Critical Thinking

Simulation provides an educational opportunity to facilitate a comprehensive analysis of the disease process, interventions, and potential outcomes. Disease simulation provokes critical thinking because the mannequin reproduces the anatomy, symptoms of the disease, and responses based on nursing interventions (Cant and Cooper, 2010).

Enhancing Teamwork and Communication

Simulation standardizes cases, promotes critical thinking, allows monitoring patient care, provides immediate feedback, and helps students absorb knowledge and experiences.

The use of high-fidelity clinical simulations in nursing education can improve the quality of learning, help students work in teams, solve problems, organize care, and promote clinical decision-making.

Provision of Safe and Controlled Learning Environment

Simulations allow for case standardization, promote critical thinking, allow for patient care tracking, provide immediate feedback, and help students process knowledge and experience.

High-accuracy patient simulations use computer-assisted mannequins that simulate real-world scenarios. The role of high-fidelity simulations in teaching complex skills, including end-of-life care, promotes skill development in the effective, psychomotor, and cognitive domains of healthcare providers.

Benefits of High-Fidelity Simulation

High-fidelity simulation can bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and nursing practice and improve the safety and quality of patient care in nursing education (Zhu et al., 2020)

Realistic Patient Care Experience In Nursing Education

High-accuracy patient simulation involves the use of computer-based training models that simulate real-world scenarios. The role of high-fidelity simulation in teaching complex skills, including end-of-life care, promotes healthcare providers’ skill development in the affective, psychomotor, and cognitive domains.

Instant Feedback on Immediate Basis

Simulation allows for standardization of cases, promotes critical thinking, enables monitoring of patient care, provides immediate feedback, and helps students process knowledge and experience.

High-fidelity simulation is able to provide participants with a learning environment to develop non-technical skills that is safe and controlled, allowing participants to make mistakes, correct them in real time, and learn from them without fear of compromising safety.

Planned and Customizable Learning

High-fidelity simulation (HFS) in nursing education provides a safe, controlled environment in which students can practice skills and learn from mistakes without endangering patients. Some benefits of HFS in nursing education are:

Clinical judgment: HFS can help students develop clinical judgment, including recognition, interpretation, response, and reflection.

Critical thinking: HFS can help students develop critical thinking skills.

Standardized cases: HFS can help standardize cases for students.

Patient care monitoring: HFS can allow patient care monitoring.

Active Learning

The purpose of using a high-fidelity simulator in a realistic scenario helps student midwives to practice a combination of learning outcomes such as knowledge, skills, satisfaction, confidence and critical thinking.

Key Components of High-Fidelity Simulation In Nursing Education

High-fidelity patient simulation is the use of computer-based mannequins that simulate real-life situations. The role of high-fidelity simulation in teaching complex skills, including end-of-life care, promotes the development of effective, psychomotor and cognitive domain-related skills of healthcare providers.

Manikins

High-accuracy manikins are an important part of simulation in nursing education because they allow students to practice clinical skills in a safe environment that mimics real-world situations. These training manikins are realistic and can react physiologically to a student’s actions or interventions.

Simulated Clinical Environment In Educational Boundaries

Simulation bridges the gap between theory and clinical practice. Students can understand a skill because they can see it and apply it in a patient simulator. In this way, critical thinking is developed and clinical decision-making skills lead to substantive learning experiences.

Simulation Use Software and Guides

Simulation allows nursing students to practice clinical skills and abilities, make mistakes that are not fatal to patients, and repeat the process (more than once) to master it.

Need for Debriefing Sessions

Debriefing sessions are a key component of high-fidelity simulation (HFS) in nursing education:

Objective

Debriefing sessions allow students and teachers to revisit the simulation experience and improve future performance.

Approach

Debriefing sessions provide feedback, analyze actions, and stimulate reflection.

Simulation Use and The Challenges & Considerations

Simulations are used in many contexts, including education, training, and safety engineering. They can be used to help people learn how to deal with real-world situations by creating a simulated event that looks real. However, there are several challenges and considerations to keep in mind when using simulations, including:

Simulation Cost

The cost of a simulation can be challenging and can vary depending on the type of simulation and the level of realism:

Simulation Models

The cost of a simulation model can be high, and running multiple simulations can also be expensive.

Simulation Equipment

The cost of simulation equipment can vary depending on the level of realism. For example, simple simulation dolls can cost a few thousand dollars, while more sophisticated models can cost upwards of $30,000.

Simulation Complexity

The level of realism and complexity of a simulation affects its cost. Simulations with low realism are the cheapest, while simulations with high realism are the most expensive.

Need Trained Faculty or Faculty Training

Microteaching is a teacher training and staff development technique in which the teacher reviews a recording of a lesson to obtain constructive feedback from colleagues or students about what worked and what improvements can be made to his or her teaching technique.

Time Constraints Limitation

Although all participants received the same total amount of time to perform the task, individuals under more stringent time constraints were given 3 times more practice trials on the first 2 days of the study than were people under less stringent time constraints.

The Over-Reliance on Simulation

Study based on the theory of technology mastery, which establishes that people are more likely to rely on their technology the less experience they have with the task, the greater the complexity of the task, the less familiarity they have with the technology, and the further away the technology is from which the skills necessary to solve the problem are removed.

What are Future Trends in High-Fidelity Simulation

High-fidelity simulation (HFS) is a teaching strategy that uses realistic mannequins to replicate real-world situations and help students practice clinical skills. HFS is becoming increasingly common in healthcare and corporate training. Future trends in HFS include:

Incorporation of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Thanks to the development of hardware and software, more interactive and realistic AR/VR experiences will soon be possible. Artificial intelligence (AI) also plays a crucial role in improving AR/VR applications. AI enables better tracking of objects and people, which in turn leads to more immersive experiences.

AI-Powered Manikins

With the advancement of modern technology, the use of mannequins plays an important role in nursing education. Mannequins are anatomically accurate simulators that replicate human physiology and provide a realistic representation of patients in various clinical scenarios.