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The Sim Cafe~
Discussions on innovative ideas for simulation and reimagining the use of simulation in clinical education. We discuss current trends in simulation with amazing guests from across the globe. Sit back, grab your favorite beverage and tune in to The Sim Cafe~
The Sim Cafe~
Building a Unified Simulation Program: Lessons from Canada's BCIT
The BCIT simulation team shares their transformative journey from siloed departments to a unified center of excellence, culminating in their recent SSH accreditation as Canada's fourth accredited program. Carrie Meager and Heather Epp reveal how leadership support, psychological safety, and human-centered approaches created their successful simulation community.
• Evolution from fragmented lab-based learning across 11 buildings to a coordinated simulation program with standardized practices
• Moving beyond skills training to develop critical thinking, communication, teamwork, and clinical decision-making
• Building psychological safety at every level creates an environment where innovation thrives
• SSH accreditation process provided structure while identifying areas for quality improvement
• Focus on human elements through their 40+ simulated participant program addressing communication challenges
• Creative approaches like "cakeable moments" and SimPath faculty development promote psychological safety
• Leadership support from deans and directors was crucial for success
• Innovative virtual simulations address costly consumables in programs like Med Lab Sciences
The BCIT simulation team welcomes connections through LinkedIn or email and can be found at conferences like SimExpo and IMSH. They're happy to share resources and support others building simulation programs.
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The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of anyone at Innovative Sim Solutions or our sponsors. Thanks to Innovative Sim Solutions for sponsoring this week's episode. Are you a healthcare professional or educator looking to level up your training methods? Then you need to check out the Basics of Healthcare Simulation, a dynamic foundational course designed to introduce you to the powerful world of simulation-based learning, from mannequins to virtual reality. This class breaks down the tools, techniques and strategies that bring clinical education to life safely, effectively and realistically. Whether you're brand new to simulation or just want a refresher course, this will give you the confidence and skills to create engaging, high-impact learning experiences.
Disclaimer/ Innovative Sim Solutions Ad. Intro:Ready to revolutionize how to teach and train, reach out to Deb Tauber at Innovative Sim Solutions to set up your training today. Welcome to The Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, edited by Shelly Houser. Join our host, deb Tauber, and co-host, Jerrod Jeffries as they sit down with subject matter experts from across the globe to reimagine clinical education and the use of simulation. Clinical education and the use of simulation. So pour yourself a cup of relaxation, sit back, tune in and learn something new from the Sim Cafe.
Deb Tauber:Welcome to another episode of The Sim Cafe. And today we are so fortunate we have the Canadians here, we have BCIT and we have Farooz Kandipour who's going to be co-hosting, so we have Carrie Meager and Heather Epps. Thank you so much for joining us. And how's everyone doing today? We're doing great, really excited to be here. Yeah, thanks for having us.
Carrie Meager :Thank you We're doing great, really excited to be here.
Heather Epps:Yeah, thanks for having us.
Ferooz Kandapoor:Thank you. Thank you, Deb, for allowing me also to co-host this, and I'm so proud to be a Canadian co-host of this episode and having my colleagues here, so I'm really excited about this podcast today.
Deb Tauber:And you are all exhausted. Heather and Carrie are exhausted from the SSH accreditation journey and Francis is exhausted from returning from CSAM.
Ferooz Kandapoor:That's correct. Well, I'm very excited to be a part of this accreditation and I'm here to just also congratulate the team, the BCIT team, for the accreditation as well, as this is a big even not for them, but it's for the entire province of British Columbia, so that's where I'm as well, so it's for our entire community, so very excited.
Carrie Meager :That's really nice to say, heather. It's been a journey for Heather and I, and the BCIT simulation team for sure, and I think we're in this state of still processing it and still can't believe it. Maybe, heather, what do you think?
Heather Epps:Yeah, it took me a little while even to post it to the world on LinkedIn, because I think it was still sinking for a little bit. So, yeah, we are extremely excited to have achieved a great milestone.
Deb Tauber:Heather, would you like to tell our guests a little bit about yourself? And then, carrie, you can go next.
Heather Epps:Okay, sure, I am a nurse by clinical background and worked in the emergency room and ICU for a long time, but have been teaching at BCIT for I'm not sure, actually a number of years, I think seven or eight and I've been in a simulation role there for the last four years, and so I'm the simulation education lead for the School of Health Sciences, which has about 30 plus healthcare programs underneath that umbrella.
Carrie Meager :Thank you, Okay, so I actually have a similar story and background to Heather as well. My background is nursing and I spent many years as an eMERGE nurse and ICU nurse as well at Vancouver General Hospital and I shifted into the emergency nursing program at BCIT as a clinical instructor and faculty about 10 years ago and more recently I think it's been almost two and a half years now I stepped into the manager role of the simulation program at BCIT. So Heather and I work very closely together. We were definitely partnering and collaborating on the accreditation process and we are working together to continue to build our simulation program at BCIT.
Deb Tauber:Excellent. Let's dive into the roots of BCIT and its simulation team. Can you share a brief history of BCIT and walk us through how the simulation team came to be and what was essentially the spark that led to its creation, and how has it evolved over time?
Carrie Meager :Sure, I always enjoy talking about BCIT in our program. So the School of Health Sciences consists of 34 different health-related programs at BCIT and the programs are divided into four different focus areas or pillars. So we have our BSN program or our nursing program, which is the largest program within the School of Health Sciences. Specialty nursing and advanced certificate programs are diagnostic and lab and allied health programs. So we are one of the largest School of Health Sciences and simulation programs in Canada and I believe we're the fourth SSH accredited sim program in Canada as well.
Carrie Meager :And simulation has actually been a part of the School of Health Sciences for a really long time. Long before we officially started calling it simulation, each program was already doing some form of it in their own way. I think we actually got our first high fidelity mannequin back in 2007. But even before then, simulation-like learning was happening across the school, just not really in a coordinated or standardized way in any way, and at the time I think it was mostly lab-based learning. It was very siloed and everyone was doing their own thing in their own way at their own time.
Carrie Meager :And because BCIT is deeply rooted in applied hands-on education, as a school we've always tried to mimic real-life clinical environments or for our students in some way. So like even going back 40 or 50 years, simulating clinical practice has really been thread and woven into how we teach and into our curriculum. So just thinking back about what's changed over the last 15 or 20 years, I think, is really how we approach simulation. So we've shifted toward using simulation more intentionally, not just for skills practice, but to support and build our students' critical thinking and communication skills, teamwork and clinical decision-making abilities and, of course, reflective practice. And that's when we really started to incorporate best practice, like pre-briefing and debriefing, into our simulations.
Carrie Meager :So that's just a little bit about the history. But when it comes to the simulation team, I just want to make it very clear that this did not happen overnight. The team really started to take shape about 10 years ago, when we started to be more strategic in how simulation could support our programs and our students, so not just in isolated labs, but across the entire school. Not just in isolated labs, but across the entire school and we realized we needed to be, we needed to really move from lab-based practice to something more immersive, something more structured and, of course, grounded in best practice and our specialty nursing team really led the way there and the timing was perfect as we were in kind of the early stages of preparing to move into the new building.
Carrie Meager :Specialty nursing formed some working groups. They developed a SIM strategy that really helped build momentum, so not just for their programs but for simulation across the school as a whole. Another key thing that we like to talk about is the support that we had from our leadership team about is the support that we had from our leadership team. Our dean and associate deans at the time and currently really believe and believed in simulation and the value it could bring to the student experience and they've really helped drive that shift from informal to more intentional. And that's really when the sim team began to come together. So currently about 75% of the programs run simulations and the team works really closely with faculty and staff to design, to implement and to roll out new simulation experiences across the school. And it's been really exciting to kind of see how far we've come over the last couple of years and how much simulation has grown and now how recognized it is as a core part of School of Health Sciences at BCIT.
Ferooz Kandapoor:That's great.
Carrie Meager :I don't know, Heather, if you have anything else to add.
Heather Epps:I think the only thing that I would maybe add in addition is we have quite a large simulation team and that is really because, as Kerry mentioned, we have a lot of programs who are running simulation and in our journey to try and unify them, we really had to create some dedicated roles. So we really started to look at how can we invest in the human aspect of simulation and really making sure that we had people who were not only championing it within their own programs but really dedicating their time and energy towards that.
Ferooz Kandapoor:Great, any challenges that your team faced during this unification and transition, what was the role of institutional leadership? And also any moment that stands out for you guys that you can remember or mention.
Carrie Meager :I think one of the biggest challenges for us bringing in a unified approach was the peer size of our school, with 34 different programs and each programming program having their own unique part of their program and what they do. So we really tried to build this one simulation program that meets the needs of all programs, but it has been challenging to ensure that each program remains their individual selves but also meeting the standards of practice with accreditation and simulation and simulation. That's been something that we've been really working on over the last I would say two and a half years or three years, since moving into the building is to learn more about these programs, to understand what they do, understand their needs and then support them with building different simulation opportunities for their students. I think we've also we recognize that we are very lucky to have the size of team that we have. I know that is something that we hear a lot from visitors that come into our space is wow, we are very lucky and we know that we are.
Carrie Meager :We're very fortunate for the people that we have, but sometimes it still doesn't feel like enough with all the projects we have on the go and the need across the school to create those really neat learning opportunities for our students. So those have been some of the biggest challenges I think we've had, you know, in our own program. Prior to moving into the new building in the fall of 2022, School of Health Sciences was actually sprinkled and spread across the campus and into 11 different buildings. So we were doing amazing work across the school to create these learning opportunities for our students, but we were all doing our own thing in our own way, with, what I said before, no standardization or structured in any way. So we've really been trying to create one program, one way of doing things and creating that standardization across the school and building this simulation community of excellence that supports, obviously, our students and faculty and programs within BCIT, but also that community around us.
Deb Tauber:Yeah, now pursuing accreditation like as if the SSH accreditation is no small feat and for such a big organization. It was a journey for you. Now, what are some of the biggest lessons you learned during the accreditation process for BCIT's simulation program and for other institutions that are eyeing SSH accreditation? What advice or insights might you share with them to help them navigate the journey?
Heather Epps:That's a great question, deb, and I feel like we could probably have many hours in this podcast to discuss it, but I think some of the key things that we learned along the way are really the first thing is creating that foundation. So we had been eyeing SSH accreditation for many years, but because we were still working in silos, we did not think that we would be able to achieve it without having this unified vision, and so we really had to create that strong foundation and make sure that everyone was on the same page, following the same best practices, and that took a lot of time, as Carrie was mentioning. So once we were able to establish that and we moved into our new simulation center in 2022. So that was really kind of a groundbreaking moment of being able to bring people together, create these resources that everyone was using, and then, I would say, after we settled because it took a little bit to get everybody used to working together and being in a shared space then we really, over the last year, had a concentrated effort, and I think it's almost like when you're getting ready to make a big life decision, like buying a house or having a baby, you never feel like you're ready, and so it actually took, I think, an outside person who happened to be you, deb, and even Farooz telling us you guys are ready, you achieved the foundation that you needed to, and you have the capacity and the ability to do this, and so I think that was a spark for us and it really helped to motivate us towards achieving this goal and realizing that we were ready to do it, but that there was still a lot of work that needed to be done.
Heather Epps:And so I think you know you do want to have people who are dedicated to completing that work, making sure that you're staying on track, having the you know, the goal in mind, but also breaking down the steps in a manageable way. And so I think that was really important for me, especially as the person kind of pulling things together and almost like project managing the accreditation journey was really being able to figure out okay, what is the next step, okay, now, what am I trying to accomplish? And I would say, having a coach or someone there to support you through that. So, deb, your support throughout the process was really invaluable. I don't think that we would have been able to achieve it in the time that we did without having someone there to kind of guide us through that. And so I think what that allowed us to do was really a validate that we were on the right track and we were following best practices.
Heather Epps:The accreditation process, I think, also highlighted still some gaps that we had that we needed to fill, and that was really important for us and it really helped us kind of focus in on this quality improvement approach and really use that sort of thinking systems, thinking all of those things to bring all those pieces together. And so I think my biggest takeaway from that is SSH accreditation, especially for an organization as large as ours, is. It's a marathon, it might actually be an ultra marathon, but you kind of have to keep motivated, stay positive and really not get too far into the weeds of it, because you can completely get off trail and lose your way if you do that. So again, having someone there to kind of point you in the right direction and pull you back onto the journey is extremely helpful.
Deb Tauber:Well, thank you. It was a pleasure and an honor to be with you. It was really. You guys were fantastic to work with.
Ferooz Kandapoor:I was constantly getting these compliments that we say you know, PCI. There was always every time we had a chance to talk and she was saying they're an amazing team to work with and so glad that I'm working with them. And I don't know how long it took, I don't remember from the time that you started to finish, but I think this was the quickest, the shortest one that I can remember because I've been through accreditation in the past with other organizations but I felt like it was very quick compared to but I don't know how many- men's was it in total, I'm glad that you felt that for me.
Heather Epps:I'm an outsider, I wasn't but well, I think it was a long time coming. I mean we had started talks about accreditation before we even moved into the building, so it's been a conversation on our minds for five years. Yeah, I think we met with Deb Carrie July last year, or maybe it was spring of last year.
Carrie Meager :Well, I think it was spring of last year. Well, I think it was spring of last year and I remember we met with you, deb, and you were encouraging us, based off of what we shared and where we were at in the process, that we could apply for the July application. Remember that, heather, and we had a moment in time where we thought that, yes, we can totally do this. And then I think we took a little bit of a step back and reflected on the conversation and realized that probably we needed a little bit more time and a little bit more attention and support from the rest of the team, just because of the uniqueness of our school and how big we are, and we set the intention that we would work towards the February application.
Ferooz Kandapoor:That's fantastic.
Carrie Meager :Yeah, I think another big thing for us to just to add to what Heather has already said is what's been key for us being successful, building this one simulation program and achieving accreditation is just the leadership support that we've had and our dean, Lisa, and our associate deans they believe in us and they trust our expertise and our abilities and that's been huge. So we've been able to do our jobs and build this program and ask for different things and different resources and they've supported us through that entire process and they see the value of simulation and what it brings to the student experience and if we didn't have that support we would not be the program today and we wouldn't be where we are today. So that's one thing that I think has been key and something that I've been really thankful for is knowing that we have support behind us and kind of moving towards that shared vision and that goal of creating a simulation community of excellence at BCIT.
Deb Tauber:Yeah, and I was so fortunate to get to meet your team at the Diamond Ball. And you know just like you said, every single person that I met, one was just nicer and you know, more wonderful than the next. Just tone at the top right.
Carrie Meager :Yeah, we are very lucky to have the team that we we have. You know, we have so much passion, so much motivation maybe too much motivation with some of the projects, which is every day it seems like we're adding something new.
Carrie Meager :But I also believe that that's why we've been successful, too is because of the team we have in that shared vision and goals and and all of us wanting to build something special and unique and being leaders in the simulation world and contributing in so many different ways. I think that's kind of what's really special about our team.
Ferooz Kandapoor:I think one thing that I just noticed and I've worked and to know many of your teammates over the past many years that I've been involved with simulation so one thing that I noticed also every time I talk to any, whether it's a simulation technology specialist, whether they're educators they always you can feel immediately that they have the support of their managers.
Ferooz Kandapoor:And then I know you guys are talking about your leadership and Dean and and so that support is not stops at the Dean and it's continues down to down to your team as well. That's what you feel and that's in the enthusiasm that you mentioned earlier. That is sometimes too much. It's just they feel that support is there so they can be more creative, they could be more contributing towards the and they can bring their ideas, and that's why you see overwhelm of like ideas. That's what I think, but that's the way, because I felt always that they feel that somebody else is supporting them with their ideas. So so that layers is built in. I think that culture is cultivated in the entire program. That's what my take is anytime I see a meeting or visiting your center.
Heather Epps:So kudos to all of you.
Heather Epps:Well, and Cruz, I think you bring up a great point and Kerry mentioned this as well is everybody sees the value in the people that are contributing to simulation, because sometimes you know you can be at an institution and people think that it's the technology that makes that simulation center special. Technology that makes that simulation center special. And don't get me wrong, we have a beautiful simulation center and we have a lot of amazing technology, but we really do have the people necessary to make that vision come to life. And so I can't say enough.
Ferooz Kandapoor:It's the people using this technology to run it. Yeah, it's not the technology that runs it, so speaking of technology. I know the technology is always evolving and BCIT is known to be the cutting edge on that front. Are there any specific simulation technology methods or particularly that you're excited or proud of, Maybe a favorite story or example that you can share with us that those technologies transformed the experience of your learners?
Heather Epps:Yeah, and again, I think we do have a lot of very cool and interesting technology, but I would say the most exciting things that have been happening at BCIT recently have been more related to adding again that human aspect. So we've launched our in-house simulated participant program and so we now have over 40, I think I know we're in the middle of interviews, so the number is growing. But we have many amazing people in our simulated participant program and that has actually spurred a lot of the different health sciences programs to start incorporating more simulated participants into their simulations, which has been really amazing. And we've been using them in a lot of unique ways to really engage our learners. And so what we've noticed, maybe coming out of the pandemic I don't know if that was an aspect or it's just the way of the world now is students coming into our programs have a really hard time with communication and sometimes even really basic communication. Really hard time with communication and sometimes even really basic communication, like picking up a phone and calling another healthcare professional to give, you know report or take, or you know an order, ask for an order, things like that. And so we've actually made a concentrated effort in creating a lot of communication style simulations, and so RSPs are playing other healthcare professionals. We've been incorporating some anti-discrimination simulations, because our learners also are really keen about being advocates in their communities and within their institutions that they're working in, and so we've been creating a lot of those types of simulations.
Heather Epps:And then I would say, because we're using a lot more SPs, we're looking a lot more into different task trainers and you know how can we combine that human aspect with the technology that's available? So we've been really looking at a lot of different avenues to do that. And then some other things I think that have been really unique or special for our program is we've been using some of the platforms and different software technologies to build our own virtual simulations. So we have Virtual Pulse, which has been around for a long time, but we're using a lot of more kind of low fidelity simulations, and so some really interesting things are coming out of our Med Lab Sciences program. We're building an interactive heme analyzer. There's a lot of consumables that cost a lot of money, and so we're trying to mimic, simulate different instrumentation, different pieces of equipment. That would normally take a lot of these different solutions and consumables and create kind of virtual environments around that. So those are some of the kind of key things that I'm thinking about. Carrie, do you have any other?
Carrie Meager :Well, I was thinking about. Something that you've been instrumental with is the SimPath workshops that help with our. Sorry I'm putting you on a spot, but it is really incredible what you have done around SimPath and creating opportunities for our faculty to learn and grow as facilitators with simulation. So I think that you should share a little bit more about that.
Heather Epps:Yeah, I guess it's okay. You can totally put me on the spot.
Carrie Meager :I'm totally putting you on the spot, but it's something that I'm very proud of and something you are very proud of, and I've had the opportunity to watch you grow those workshops and build them from the ground up.
Heather Epps:And probably one of the most rewarding parts of my job I think I actually don't know the exact number anymore, but it's over 700 or 800 faculty as well as we have a lot of clinical instructors and so we try to encourage them to take these faculty development workshops.
Heather Epps:And the other challenge is we offer them as interprofessional workshops, so we don't want to just focus the interactivity within the workshop on one profession. So we use a lot of different creative things to engage people. We try to use examples, even outside of healthcare, to get people thinking about debriefing concepts or pre-briefing concepts. We like to use the Great Canadian Baking Show as an example for how you maybe you could pre-brief something if we get them to do an example of how would you pre-brief the Great Canadian Baking Show if you were going to use it as a simulation versus the ready set bake pre-brief that they normally get. So, yeah, just kind of coming up with creative ways to engage faculty and bring everyone together so that they can learn concepts without feeling like one profession is being singled out or put above another.
Deb Tauber:You know, what I really feel like you guys do an excellent job at is creating a psychologically safe environment all over, from just everywhere. Not, you know, for your faculty, your leadership. So because it's so psychologically safe, people aren't afraid to with a new idea with a new idea.
Ferooz Kandapoor:Yeah, yeah, I had I toured your center uh last year. I think it's due again to come in. So much change, change, so much. So many things changed. I'd like to come in and see especially those innovations and and those uh creative ideas that you guys are doing. I want to come in and check out and see, learn uh, some things new. That's, that's fantastic.
Heather Epps:Yes, we would love to have you, and we want Deb to come and visit too, because we feel like she's been a part of it for the last year but hasn't actually been able to tour with us?
Deb Tauber:Yeah, can't wait. Well, thank you. Now, as we wrap up, what final thoughts or words of inspiration would you like to leave our listeners with about the power of simulation and in education in the future of BCIT's program?
Carrie Meager :Heather, you want to jump in, you want to start us off.
Heather Epps:Sure, I think you know, for us, as we've mentioned throughout this podcast, this conversation is at BCIT we really do have a vision of a community and a center of excellence. So when we brought all of our programs together to create a unified simulation strategy, that was what we decided to focus on and put first. And so our vision is to create a community and center of excellence. And so I think, Farooz, to what you were talking about with the psychological safety piece, and what we've been talking about the whole time is, you really do have to give attention to the people that are delivering simulations, designing simulations, setting up simulations, participating in simulations, as well as supporting that movement. And so, yeah, I think, just you know, making sure that community is always at the forefront of your minds.
Carrie Meager :Yeah, and just to add to, you know it took us many, many years to get to where we are today. It didn't happen overnight, and I think that's important if you are someone who's starting to build a simulation program or in the early days and you feel like you have this massive mountain to climb and there's so many things to learn and so many things to do and so many things to build. It took us a really long time to get to where we are today and we still don't feel like we are where we want to be we still have so much to do and so much to learn and so many places where we can improve and do things differently.
Carrie Meager :It's something that will just be ongoing for us. We are a team that has built a lot of resources and are very open to sharing and supporting, so if you're in that space where you're overwhelmed and you don't know what to do and you need help, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would enjoy supporting you and hearing your stories and offering any tips or tricks or things that we've been through along the way over this I don't know 10 to 15 year journey.
Heather Epps:we've been on. One thing that we like to do with our SimTech team is we have cakeable offenses. So if anybody happens to make a mistake that is not unintentional and they want to make sure that the team recognizes that they're sorry, we get them to bring in a cake.
Deb Tauber:I love that yeah.
Heather Epps:I have brought in many cakes so we can just celebrate as a team and it doesn't become something that's horrendous. It's something that we can all talk about and and enjoy some cake while I love that, cakeable moments, I I will remember cakeable moments.
Ferooz Kandapoor:I made a note of that. So that's a great way of, uh, you know, working with a team and just allowing that. Again, psychological safety is that's cakeable moments. So For those of our listeners that are inspired by this work and us in the province of BC and Canada and beyond, what is the best way for our listeners to get in touch with you guys if they have any questions or wanted to learn more?
Carrie Meager :Yeah, that's a great question. So Heather and I are both on LinkedIn, so that would be a great way to connect with us. Our BCIT School of Health Sciences website, I believe, has my contact information, so Carrie's information on there and through email. I think Heather and I would be happy to share our emails as well.
Ferooz Kandapoor:And we will make sure that we put all of your contact as well in the show's notes and we'll share that as well.
Carrie Meager :Heather and I often attend conferences as well, so we have SimExpo coming up in November and IMSH in January. We hope to be there as well, so happy to connect and network at those events as well.
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Deb Tauber:Yes, thank you. You guys will be celebrated at the Diamond Ball. We hope, so we're looking forward to that. All right, well, with that we will conclude, and I want to thank everyone for being here today and happy simulating.
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