Thought Leaders, Dr. Pam Jeffries & Dr. Lennox Huang with One Mission: Transform Healthcare Simulation Worldwide

What happens when you take simulation out of the lab and put it at the center of global health strategy? We sit down with Dr. Pam Jeffries and Dr. Lennox Huang—co‑chairs of the Global Network for Simulation in Healthcare (GNSH)—to unpack how thought leadership, diversity, and real‑world constraints are reshaping the field for measurable impact.

We dig into what sets GNSH apart from traditional associations: no vendor floor, no siloed tracks, and a laser focus on big system challenges like patient safety, workforce resilience, health economics, and the rapid rise of AI. You’ll hear the story behind the 30‑minute team engagement initiative, a concise, team‑ready approach built from real patient cases that scaled during COVID and proved simulation can fit busy clinical workflows while improving outcomes. Pam and Lennox share how bi‑directional learning between low‑ and high‑resource settings sparks innovations that actually spread, and why bringing CEOs, educators, clinicians, regulators, and industry into the same room changes product roadmaps and policy priorities.

We also look ahead: precision learning, extended reality, and AI‑driven feedback loops that turn simulation into a continuous, data‑informed practice. From defining AI competencies for health professions to translating simulation into capital projects and policy pilots, the path forward is practical and urgent. And if you’re curious about where the world’s sim leaders are heading next, get a preview of the Copenhagen summit—Navigating AI, Economic Investment, and Impact for Global Health Transformation—along with easy ways to connect virtually and at major conferences.

If you care about safer care, smarter training, and systems that learn faster, this conversation offers a roadmap you can act on today. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with the one change you’d make to scale simulation in your setting.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Sponsor + Course Spotlight
• 0:59 Welcome & Guest Introductions
• 3:18 What GNSH Is—and Isn’t
• 7:56 Diversity as a Strategic Advantage
• 13:37 Bi‑Directional Learning Across Regions
• 17:29 Industry Collaboration Without a Vendor Floor
• 21:10 Personal Journeys Into Global Thought Leadership
• 26:12 Embedding Simulation in Health Systems
• 31:24 Overcoming Fragmentation and Inequity
• 36:16 Measurable Impact: The 30‑Minute Initiative
• 41:02 AI, XR, and Precision Learning Futures
• 46:00 Copenhagen Summit: Themes and Access

Transcript

Disclaimer/ Innovative Sim Solutions Ad/ intro: 0:00

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 to refresh a course, this will give you the confidence and skills to create engaging, high-impact learning experiences. 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. So pour yourself a cup of relaxation, sit back, tune in, and learn something new from The Sim Cafe.

Deb Tauber- Host: 1:40

Welcome to The Sim Cafe podcast, where we bring together leaders, educators, and innovators shaping the world of healthcare simulation. I'm your host, Deb Tauber, with co-host Jerrod Jeffries. And today we're honored to welcome some truly visionary guests, Dr. Pam Jeffries and Dr. Lennox Huang. Welcome to the program today. And why don't you introduce yourselves a little bit more to our listeners, and then we can get started with some interesting questions.

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 2:08

Well, thanks so much, Deb. It's really a pleasure to be here. My name's uh Lennox Huang. I'm I'm a physician during the daytime and sometimes during the nighttime. I practice in critical care. And I also have an administrative job as the Chief Medical Officer, vice president for medical academic affairs and education at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. And I've been in simulation for a little while now. Goes back well over 20 years and enjoy everything that it does for our patients, our families, but also enriching my personal and professional life too.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 2:42

Thank you. Thanks, Deb, for being here. I'm Pam Jeffries. I'm Dean and Professor at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, Tennessee, Music City. Like Lennox, I've been in simulation for decades, and I've been in the academics and leadership probably, you know, over a decade. But been in the academic side where he's been on the healthcare side, but you know, truly believe in in simulations and the enhancement for education, clinical practice, and safe patient care. Thank you.

Deb Tauber- Host: 3:15

Thank you. We'll get into our questions. So for listeners who may not be familiar, can you share what GNSH is and how it's different than other simulation associations?

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 3:26

Maybe I'll I'll take a stab at that and I'll ask Pam to join in as well. Both she and I have been a part of GNSH for over 10 years. And I think for me, one of the things that was special about it is it was a gathering of leaders that crossed society, so academia, but also industry too. And so this was a way of bringing people together in a manner that wasn't restricted to your typical society. So there, you know, our goal was not to create another journal or to have another conference where it's the same things over and over again, but really to try to see what we could do so that we bring simulation into healthcare and have the greatest impact possible. And also have a bit of a lens as health on healthcare more broadly to say what's out there, how can we get outside of our bubble of our own, you know, and and we're a group of special people in simulation, don't get me wrong, amazing group, amazing community. But at times we really do need to get out of the bubble of our specific field, see what's going on in healthcare more broadly, and see what's going on across the world. And so this concept of thought leadership being bringing people from around the world, and so it's a global society, and people who are leaders, either official leaders or emerging leaders, to say, how do we bring simulation into healthcare have the greatest impact possible? Pam, what are your thoughts? You you've been there from the start, like me.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 4:54

So I don't know that we've said it, but Lennox and I are both co-chairs of GNSH, which I find it's it's a great partnership because he's on the medical side, I'm on nursing, and this is interprofessional for all professions globally. If you look back historically, and I'm not going to get involved with that, but it's 2010, this is where the organization was developed for 27 representatives. And then throughout it's evolved throughout the years. In 2021, Lennox and I both were involved with strategic planning and goal setting. And that's where we came, it's evolved to, as he said, thought leaders. A group of thought leaders that globally are coming together from different professions. And I find it so important and valuable because I'm in my own world. I can be in my own profession and nursing, I can be in the US or North America. But during COVID, as we found out, global affects all of us. The global healthcare issues, workforce, what whatever you want, these big issues, it it transcends everywhere. So that's what we're about, thought leaders. And that was the missing piece, I'll say, in my whole world, with simulations, with education, with academic, with healthcare, there's a different side. It's not just our view in a North America. So with the thought leader percent uh perspective, we came together and we had a retreat in 2021 and labeled ourselves as thought leaders. And that's exactly what it is. We want to bring all walks of life, all professions and dealing. And I'll say since 2021, since our GNSH summits that we've had, we force we focus on workforce issues. Workforce is major, it really elevated itself during COVID and continues to with the challenges. In addition, global health problems, illness, health disruptions, all that. Whatever's happening here, it's happening across the world. And we're how are we all dealing with that? It was always interesting. I think it was two years ago our summit was in Dubai. But interesting to hear about the COVID and the healthcare and workforce issues. And all of us, I think we represented 10 countries at that time. We're all shaking our heads with the similarities and differences. And what in reflecting back, we all wish we had been together then and talking about these issues and how we were navigating. So now we're moving forward. What what would we learn from that? So that's really GNSH bringing the thought leaders, and it's more as Lennox said, it's not the typical, but it's like organization, professional organizations, in addition to those thought leaders that we want to bring in to talk about these certain issues. We do have an annual summit, which we're getting ready to have in October in Copenhagen. We'll talk more about a little bit later. But the summit brings together all these leaders, thought leaders, and then what's timely, what's contemporary, what are the topics we're going to talk about? Again, workforces up there, and now you can imagine the AI, the technologies, all that.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 7:52

So there's a macro level, I feel that it's much more encompassing with the thought leaders. But if GNSH brings together these educators, clinicians as your co-chairs, and then also I hear industry and regulation or regulators. So I feel like that strength lies in some of its diversity. And I want to understand how that would help impact and advancing the mission and simulation. Could you speak a little on that?

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 8:18

Yeah, well, I think diversity is it's clearly a strength of GNSH. And when we say diversity, we mean it in the broadest sense possible. So it's crossing multiple countries. I think at different points, we had well over 20 countries in some of our virtual uh gatherings, some of our in-person gatherings, there were the countries numbered in the teens. So we were bringing people from around the world with very, very different lived experiences. We're bringing people together who are coming from different professional backgrounds. And so when you do that, you're bringing it's not just traditional healthcare backgrounds, but if you bring administrators in, if you bring folks from industry, they have a different perspective on the world. And I think by bringing these perspectives together, you get this melding and an understanding of, oh, well, you know, I never thought about this issue in quite that way. Maybe this is a time to change tact. And we've heard this from academic leaders, we've heard this also from industry leaders too. Some of some of our industry leaders said, well, you know, that session that we had at one of our summits where we had CEOs. So we've had, we we regularly bring either hospital or system CEOs or healthcare trust CEOs in to speak to the group. It was transformative for this industry leader because they had never heard what the perspective of a leader who's not within simulation, but is trying to run a big, complex organization. They'd never heard that perspective before. And they realized the way they were approaching what they were producing was completely wrong. The way they were focusing their company was completely wrong. And that actually led them to change the focus of their company for the subsequent number of years. It was really an about face. And so that was really powerful. And it goes both ways. So that's the interesting thing, too. So we by bringing in leaders who are not in simulation, we're now introducing the field to them. And it, you know, they start to realize that, oh, you know, simulation isn't just about running ACLS algorithms and doing uh simulations for the most rare events and the ECMO transfers and things like that. Nor is it about purely training undergraduate nursing students. And simulation is a broad, broad field. We're now moving into system simulation, translational simulation, all of these terminologies that and areas of interest that really meld well with healthcare more broadly. And we're now introducing that to healthcare leaders in in different places around the world. So that magic and that discussion coming together from all these different voices really, really is special.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 10:57

I'll dovetail onto that. And thanks, Jerrod, for the question about the diversity. We are very intentional at GNSH as well to look at underserved low-income areas geographically. In fact, for the summit, we're so intentional we offer scholarships for some of those low-income areas because coming to a conference, summit, whatever is very difficult. So we're really proud of that fact. But when we get together, you hear from the underserved countries and the industrial countries where they're flourishing, and we learn from each other. And in fact, one summit, we one topic was sustainability, and looking at all of that and the climate change and effects on health disruptions, etc., and where simulations come in, etc. I think it was Pakistan as one of the leaders from the low-income country. She was just so thankful to hear about sustainability and what she can take back to Pakistan and influence. They kind of started on some of that, uh, on that notion, but she'd learned a lot. Now she can take back to her country and really be impactful and influential in those areas. So that's just another example. But we really embrace diversity as Lennox said in many ways.

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 12:13

I'll just add it it goes both ways. So I think oftentimes when we hear about inequity, and you know, there's an assumption that the flow of innovation and the flow of adoption and the flow of everything goes in one direction from the high resource to the low resource, and that's where the learning takes place. And you know, what we've found and discovered is it's it's not at all that. It's it goes bi-directionally, it goes in a network manner. On the one hand, maybe there's something uh around sustainability that could have an impact in Pakistan. On the other hand, we heard in one of our conferences about or one of our summits about innovations in Nepal around how to move large-scale change forward and increase adoption that were really, really relevant to people practicing in tertiary and quaternary care centers where they're feeling like they're running against a brick wall for how to move large-scale change uh initiatives forward. And I think we're going to look forward in this coming summit, we have, for instance, a leader from the African Simulation Network. And while it's not one homogeneous network, I think being able to hear all these different voices about how, well, in fact, in different circumstances and different cultures in different areas, certain principles actually hold true for adoption, for translation. And again, there's a I use the word magic, I used it a couple of times, but it really is magical, the sort of conversations that we have.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 13:43

Yeah, and you and I don't think you can script those or it's they're priceless, right? It's because with how large and differentiated you are from the other perhaps conferences or summits or organizations that I'm aware of, I feel like jet GNSH with the thought leadership tied into the more macro perspective, is is certainly a unique organization that stands out a little differently than the rest of them.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 14:07

Yeah, thank you for asking because I think sometimes we're not getting our stories out there. That's probably why I mean we're we're still involved in GNSH and we believe with the aims, the strategic goals and all that, because it's so important and rewarding when we get leaders from all these different countries together. We as Lennox said, we learn from each other.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 14:28

But and just to clarify, there's industry involved two of these conferences, or it's mostly yeah, you're shaking your head. Yes. Yes.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 14:35

That was that's very intentional too. We industry is a stakeholder and they learn a lot from us. You know, sometimes they're over here, but really they impact what they're what we're doing impacts what they're making and what they bring to the table, or what needs, you know, in the research and development area, what's next and where are the gaps, whether it's in practice, patient care spin in the education world under experiential learning. So it's great. They're great partners.

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 15:03

And we say summit because it's not a typical conference where you have a vendor section and uh and they stay outside of the academic sessions. This is really a melting of minds. There is no there is no vendor section, in fact. That's an explicit thing that we do. And and what it does is brings leaders from different areas of the sim industry and including people who are just emerging together in a way that they can hear from others who've perhaps been in the field for a little bit longer. And then collectively, where our focus is you know, there isn't it's not trying to sell a product or move something forward, but it's trying to solve big problems in healthcare. And as we start to hear these big problems, say, well, well, where's the connection with uh with with our field? And is there something that already is out there that we should be now connecting, or is there a future direction that we need to be taking?

Deb Tauber- Host: 15:54

Doing a lot with it as a think tank group.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 15:57

Yeah, it's kind of that. And even for the summit, I mean, this year health economics is on there. Of course, AI is going to be on there because that's exploding everywhere and impacting healthcare at bedside and education and research and everywhere. But we're I would say we're very contemporary trying to keep our finger on the pulse in our own worlds, but globally.

Deb Tauber- Host: 16:18

Pam, you've been a pioneer in simulation for nursing and education. What inspired you to expand your work into the global arena with GNSH? And Lennox, how has simulation shaped your own perspective as a physician leader? Where do you both see GNSH in five years?

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 16:37

Well, I guess I'll start. So I love the GNSH and a stayed, and I have stayed involved, even though you talk to Lennox and I, we both have very busy schedules, we have day jobs, we have a lot of stuff going on. But we we believe in the philosophy, we believe in the the aim, the goal, uh, the priorities. I think global is just really important. You can't just stay myopic and focus in your own world. That's important, but we have touch points everywhere. Globally, that I I'm very passionate about that, even though you you call me a pioneer, thank you. That was a very uh nice compliment. But in nursing, we we've done a lot growing through the years and getting in our profession and in our pre-licensure program and all that, but it's much more than that. It's you know, the whole outcome with simulation is high-quality patient care. We're trying to provide education to our future nurses, our future health professionals to affect patient care. That's what it's all about. And if you don't go global, you're missing something. So GNSH fills that void for me, or you know, how do we impact global? I want the most impact possible, the most influence will apply, and that gives me great joy and pleasure. And to give you an example that the global, I mean, this was years ago, it had nothing to do with GNSH, but you kind of if you want to track the the record here. I can't even remember how many years ago. I've got a MOOC, a massive open online course, and in simulations. There's basically seven modules for the world to get free, right? I think it's called essentials of clinical simulation in healthcare or something. But that's for the world because there's so many folks in the underserved countries or globally that can't go to conferences like we do and learn about simulation 101, learn about debriefing, learn about how to integrate it in the curriculum. So I wanted to intentionally put that in a massive open online course through Coursera.org. It's still there. And there's over 25,000 participants. But that is impactful because there's folks that now can learn more about simulation and help other educators, researchers, healthcare providers in their own world. So global that I just would fill a void if the global presence wasn't there. So Glenn, back to you.

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 18:59

Yeah, so so I've had uh I've had an interesting career to date. So I I landed in relatively senior leadership role fairly early in my career as uh as an academic physician. And so now I've been I've been in these leadership roles for it's approaching, uh, I want to say approaching about 18 to 20-ish years almost. And when you landed something like this early in your career and you've got other polls to maintain your clinical expertise and develop your clinical expertise and to try and develop an academic career and to try and do all of these other things, the only way to do this and stay sane is to try and find all the connections and where it all melds together. And as a result, I've I've found that simulation has really helped me immensely as a clinician. So whether it's the actual clinical skills or the conversations that you're having or starting to understand aspects of patient safety from a frontline clinician standpoint, this helped me along all the way through. And as I was thinking about my leadership roles, you know, started it off in an academic setting as an associate chair and then a chair of a department. I need to find ways where something I was really passionate and interested about actually helped me in my other job. And things like understanding human performance and safety and systems really started to emerge, and the fields of these areas of simulation were also maturing along the same time. And we did things like use simulation to shape how we renovated and built uh new clinical spaces in a hospital. So this was something I had on my administrative side that I needed to move ahead. And then at the same time, I thought, well, well, here's something that seems to work at the same time. Why don't we do the two things together? So finding those connections was serendipity for me because I just happened, there was a need and it happened to come together. And what I've realized is that this is something I think that is scalable. So there's no reason why inserting sulation into all aspects of healthcare shouldn't be something that just takes place everywhere. And I think that's the challenge, it's one of the challenges that we see from a GNSH standpoint is how do we get the language of stimulation, the terminology of simulation, the practice of stimulation into the minds of every operational leader that is in charge of a healthcare system or healthcare institution. How do you integrate that really well? We've seen it do wonders on the education side. So I think on the education side, it is pretty much there, whether you're talking about any one of the health professions going in, I think there's an expectation for simulation. What I don't think we've quite seen yet, although there's been tremendous progress, is being on the minds of every health administrator, whether you're a manager, director, a vice president, or a CEO. If you're introducing a policy, if you're going through accreditation, if you're starting to think about how you can run your organization more efficiently, simulation should just be woven in every other sentence. And, you know, we're getting there, and we're certainly uh pretty close to that point in my own institution at Sick Kids in Toronto. And I've seen this start to happen in other places. And when that happens, it's incredible because all the benefits that come along with this are the very things that appeal to healthcare administrators. So you talk about safety and you talk about managing resources and tight resources, you talk about retention and the health human resource crisis. These are all things that are top of mind for administrators. And now we're seeing, as Pam said, you know, we're on top of the emerging topics, like thinking about macroeconomic trends, looking at planetary health and where AI is taking healthcare to. So by focusing simulation on the big, big healthcare trends, I think we're going to position our field in a place where it'll be better integrated in healthcare organizations across the world.

Deb Tauber- Host: 23:06

Thank you.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 23:07

So I want to go back to the question though. The the last question was where do you see GNSH in five years? Do you see it in five years to have an imprint of simulation across all healthcare professions?

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 23:20

Well, I think we're pushing the thought leadership end of things tremendously. So by bringing leaders from various societies, convening them in a way and introducing them to certain topics and allowing these conversations to happen, I think there is already an advancement of the field. We saw that with one of our dear colleagues, Chad Epps. Chad was at one point the president of GNSH. Around the time that as an organization, we were saying, well, we need to connect to patient safety and the patient safety movement. And we developed things like our 30-minute initiative. And then Chad then became was president of SSH and connected what he was seeing in our conversations that took place in GNSH to some of the directions of SSH, which then also had a spill-on impact too. So by having these thought leadership connections and conversations, I think each of those organizations then sort of said, oh, you know, we hadn't really thought about this. We should bring this back to something that we're focusing on. And maybe this is going to be precision learning through AI, and maybe it's going to be understanding that simulation has to have a value proposition for uh health human resources, or that as the world becomes more conscious about how the planetary impact of health care and the environmental impact of healthcare, simulation has to be right there too.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 24:43

And I will expand just in five years with GNSH is continue to grow our thought leaders. We mentioned, I think the summit this year, there's 10 countries, if not more, Linux. I can't remember. One's virtual summit, we had 20 countries, but we should be ex continue to expand. I know SSH has a global consensus model. There were 62 countries or organizations involved. So I see our growth in five years. I feel that we're filling a void that's current and probably will continue to be. And the void is as thought leaders. If you look, um, Jerrod and Debbie both have been, you know, we go to whether it's the NLN, whether it's the SSH or IMSH, whether it's INACSL, wherever we go, you know, those conferences are very different. People are there, of course, they're networking and socializing, but they're learning about education or the latest research and best practices and what I can take home. Or GNSH is not like that. We're talking about those bigger issues and trying to problem solve, even set priorities. Maybe that's where we're going in five years, where GNSH globally we have this these three major priorities that have transcended across you know this many countries. And this is where we need to be putting our emphasis, right? We're not there yet, but we're in dialogue. We're trying to, we've got the infrastructure um and starting to process it. But having that thought leadership, and you don't have at those other conferences, this was a missing piece I feel GNSH is filling because that reflective practice, just that dialogue, that respect, listening to others and what they're doing. And we've already given examples how it's bi-directional, we're learning from each other. And you come out of there and you feel really good because either you've impacted someone or someone's impacting you. And I feel rewarded through the GNSH summit, whether it's virtual or on site, because it is global and touching many, many countries, organizations, stakeholders, such as our industry partners, and individual members too. We try to reach out wherever we have the summit, we invite those individual members. Like last year it was in Toronto. So we had many Canadians there. This year we're gonna have uh several Danish uh coming or from the Scandinavian countries.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 27:04

And what do you find is some of your biggest challenges in aligning these international efforts? And are you doing anything to help overcome some of those barriers?

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 27:11

There's challenges, of course, because we all have different cultures. There's there's challenges in the United States with 50 different states because everything is different and has different cultures. So some of those are just understanding, having the right terminology, the right verbiage. Am I understanding this correctly? Because I can I can hear this story and interpret it one way, and maybe that's not the interpretation. So the matter of clarity, respect, and even there may be a sweet spot in the middle because somebody ha leaves this or this, but how do we get in the middle with more of a collaborative mindset, not one on here, one here? So a shared mental model, that's what I was trying to think of. So those are some of the challenges. Lang there's language barriers or too when you try. Not every country's English speaking. So how do we get that together and making sure we're hearing the same message or trying to get their message across, even though language barriers. Those are a few. Lennox, I know you've got some to add as well.

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 28:09

Well, we've had a lot of conversations, and Pam and I have been involved in a lot of conversations around how do we overcome two things, fragmentation and inequity. And you, you know, this happens at a society level, but it also happens at a country level too. And the it is a real challenge for countries where it's a low middle income country to try and get to a physical conference somewhere. Right. I mean, you think about the resources, the cost of flying halfway across the world, paying for a hotel, paying for the conference fees. That's a real challenge. And so we've deliberately, as an organization, kept our costs as low as possible. We've tried our best to have sponsorships, we've had certainly philanthropic donations as well to support attendants from low-middle-income countries. I think we're deliberately trying to move around the world for geographic variation too. So, you know, in small ways, we're trying to address that. The fragmentation issue is something that's interesting because if you think about your typical academic conference that you might go to, oftentimes there's debates there, right? So, you know, you could take a debate of, well, do you talk about feelings or do you not talk about feelings in debriefing? Is that important, not important? Is it have impactful or not? You know, our perspective is rather than to get into this thing where we start to have more and more this versus that type debates, we're looking at the big picture problem that actually exists. And so you're taking people who may have a bunch of different perspectives. And rather than having those perspectives be in direct conflict with each other around a particular issue, you're saying, hey, let's orient on that bigger problem off to the side here that we're not even thinking about. So take health human resources, take planetary health, take uh AI, non. Not just in terms of using AI to design scenarios, but AI in a very broad sense, whether it's the ethics or or how it's integrating into all of healthcare. And let's get an awareness of that and let's start to think about how all of our collective minds might be able to uh tackle that problem.

Deb Tauber- Host: 30:16

Can you share a specific example of how GNSH initiative that's had a measurable impact, something specific like patient safety, healthcare systems, or education?

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 30:26

If I can go back, it's the 30-minute team engagement. Those were developed. We have 16 patient safety cases, and they were based from the Patient Safety Foundation. They were real patient stories. We put together with a scenario, and simulations are in there. It's all about teams. Anyway, without giving more specifics, there it's on our website, gnsh.org. But out of those 16 cases during COVID, they were used widely greatly. We have metrics on our website where hundreds of people used these virtual cases and kept clinical progression going during COVID when we couldn't get in the hospitals. But many of the faculty on the academic side used the cases for educational instruction where they were really met on the hospital side to engage teams and to provide more awareness on team communication, engagement, problem solving, and to prevent errors, quite frankly. So that translated into the academic side during COVID. And I remember doing so many webinars during COVID, even announced about the GNSH cases and the 30-minute can't we were on a 30-minute campaign, team, team engagement. But metrics will show itself how impactful it was, and there's stories and there's articles written on that as well. So I'll keep that story short. I know Linux has other examples as well.

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 31:53

Yeah, and I'll build on the 30-minute initiative. So I think the last count uh we had had Kaswang do a little inquiry on this, it was approaching 300,000 independent views of the tool and uses of the tool crossing multiple countries. And I don't remember the exact number of countries, but again, reflective of the GNSH audience in terms of use of that particular tool. And the interesting thing is this tool emerged as a direct result of a hospital CEO at one of our summits telling us that the traditional way of thinking about simulation with the three to one ratio of debrief, and if you're gonna run a 15-minute simulation, then that means it's 45 minutes of debrief and that's gonna take a whole hour. That is just impossible to do in a busy, large community hospital. There's no way they're gonna be able to do that. And we said, well, so how do we make this more initiative, kid, more interesting, and actually be able to be integrated in terms of the regular workflow? Well, it's well, you know, if if it totaled about 30 minutes and you could break it up into segments, and then we start thinking, well, that if you could tell a story, a meaningful story that connects directly with care, then you now start to make it really relevant to the teams that are providing care. And it's something that we potentially could fit into the day, and that's what led to the 30-minute initiative. And maybe what we can back up even to 2015, one of the things that came out of our meeting in Stevenger at that time was a white paper looking at the value of simulation. So this goes back a decade, but we had a consensus statement that crossed, again, countries, societies, industry, really outlining the value of simulation it brought to healthcare more broadly. And that also led to a tool that allowed people and leaders to have conversations with decision makers, framework for people to have these conversations. So some of that early work, while now you know there's been updates and more work, including things like the global consensus uh for simulation in healthcare, I think it really paved the way for this thinking to emerge and for individual groups to have these uh conversations to get simulation more embedded into their own organizations.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 34:15

I love that. And I also want to push it even a little further. Is so with the advances of all these different realities and of course AI, how do you see simulation evolve even more over the next decade? And then what type of role, if any, will GNSH play in guiding that type of evolution?

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 34:34

I think it's pretty clear. We're in we're in this era where simulation isn't just confined to a room. I mean, we've had the discussions around moving out of the Sim Center, getting into the clinical space. But I think we're, you know, we're getting into the virtual space now, right? It's uh learning overall is becoming much more continuous. Where possible, it's data-driven, it's starting to, there are the possibilities of real personalized precision learning are now starting to emerge, and AI is going to play a huge role into this. When you start to think about adaptive learning systems and you talk about learning healthcare learning systems in general, well, simulation is a natural translational tool for this. So we've been thinking about this for a number of years now from a GNSH perspective. This is why we've brought in AI leaders who are not directly in the SIM world, because we need to hear about what's happening with big data. We need to hear what's happening with machine learning, and we need to hear about generative AI, not from our narrow simulation lens, but more broadly how things are evolving, how each of those things are getting integrated into healthcare systems. Some places are creating their own AI service. I know of places where they try to have simulation as a clinical service line. And, you know, there's moderate success, I would say, a number of places, but now I think AI is like taking over so that many, many places now are starting to think of an AI service line. So how can simulation be there? How can SIM be directly integrated into that that kind of uh that kind of work? And this extends into things like extended reality. So we've certainly been, as an organization, part of conversations around what needs to happen on in terms of the research agenda for extended reality. And I think we're going to continue to be a part of this and help influence thought leaders around the world. Wonderful.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 36:29

As far as GNSH, I mean, AI is on our agenda for this summit coming up in a few weeks. In addition, it was last year. I mean, it's just exploding. We would we would be crazy not to include that on the agenda because that's an emerging topic, right? It's not even emerging, it's an exploding topic. And it's really important in healthcare because AI is moving into healthcare, the bedside, system issues, system point of care, all of that. Not even just for nursing, but across health professions. But what do we need to learn? How do we use simulations to help replicate or model model those practices? That's one thing. Also using the AI tools, I think, for more efficiency. I remember the days where we sat and used to write interprofessional simulations, getting medicine, we had clergy because we wanted to write spiritual ones, we had nursing, and it we take an evening to do it. Now with the right prompt through AI, you can write a simulation scenario in two minutes. And then I can make it competency-based and get the tool to measure this on pain management, whatever that is. So that's just it's mind-boggling really, but it's it's creating more efficiency. But the other thing is in education, even with AI, is developing these A models, where AI models where it's giving feedback to students in just in time manner. It's like a debriefing, right? But you can talk to it in a competency-based way as well. On the academic side, where where we have to go, or uh Jerrod, you say where are we gonna go? I mean the research, the metrics are all important. The implementation science using AI is important. So, what are those metrics? How are we evaluating what's working, what's not? Because we know there's good AI, there's hallucinations, there's not great AI in some areas, and very much systems-oriented as well as health professional. So it doesn't even behoove us to do something for nursing, do something for medicine. And I'll just leave last plug is AI competencies for our health professions. What does that look like? First of all, you have to have standardized health professional AI competencies, and I'll speak from the academic side to make sure our learners, our prospective health professional students are getting the basics because once they go on healthcare, it's being utilized. And you don't want to start from scratch, you want to retain the health professionals you're hiring. We've got to do a better job in synergizing with the academic practice partnerships on that as well.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 38:57

That's a that's a great answer.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 39:00

So you have you got it. Yeah, no, definitely.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 39:02

But I but I also just you mentioned it at the beginning of this answer, too, is I want to get a little more information about the GNSH summit. Can you give us a little more information about that?

Deb Tauber- Host: 39:11

Yep. Absolutely. Too late to sign up. Yeah, not at all. Not at all.

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 39:16

Not at all. It's uh it's at the end of this month, it's in Copenhagen. So the title of our summit is Navigating AI Economic Investment and Impact for Global Health Transformation. And it's an incredible group. We have over 10 countries represented already, and we've got a large number of leaders from multiple societies, from multiple industries coming in and meeting. And I think maybe I'll just contextualize this in this day and age where it feels like borders are becoming a lot more fixed and solid, and people are retreating in some ways. I really do believe that simulation can show an alternate way to this and cross these borders and bridge perceived gaps that cross geographic boundaries, cross cultural boundaries, cross professional boundaries. So, you know, I think I think this is one small way of us getting together and having a huge impact around this world that's going to be transformative.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 40:13

So Lennox gave you the title, some major concepts, of course, is going to be workforce, gonna be health economics, another one's AI and integration, not only in simulation and citation, but the use across the health profession. And around patient safety, we have a Danish speaker also looking at the Danish Society on Patient Safety. So overall, this these are the contemporary topics we try to get. And when you come out, you hear diverse thoughts, what folks are doing around the world. And what do we have 10 countries represented or more, Lennox?

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 40:47

Well, let's count at least 10 countries. Um, I think uh some people are it's interesting because people move around the world, so they some people uh will will actually end up representing more than one country.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 40:59

So we talk about the topics and the education and the reflection and the dialogue, but also important is just the networking and you boundary span your with your colleagues. So now I'll learn more about colleagues in Pakistan, in South Africa. Somebody's coming from Brazil, from they're just all over. And it's just so rewarding uh after the during the summit, after the summit. And then we try to keep connections, and in between the summit, that is we have one summit a year, that's usually November, October, whenever that is, and then we try to have virtual, two virtual summits, one in the spring. Well, just another virtual summit, it's it's in the spring usually to keep connections. In the meantime, of course, we we have a 10-member GNSH board that we're working through and our aims and priorities as well.

Deb Tauber- Host: 41:50

Very, very exciting. Now we really appreciate the time, your efforts, the things that you're doing. We're so grateful to have you guys today. If you could leave our listeners with one message about the global simulation movement, what would that be?

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 42:05

I think one is to join the movement. So whether you're a clinician, an educator, a policymaker, you know, simulation is the bridge to safer, smarter care that's also more compassionate. And, you know, join the movement, connect with people around the world, and you're going to be personally enriched, but you're also going to have a huge impact.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 42:29

And I'll leave with the notion that even though globally we're different, different countries, different cultures, we have more similarities than differences. And you really recognize this when you get together. And there's such a I'll just say from my personal perspective, there's a great appreciation for those differences and learning about different aspects, not only in simulation, but in patient care and health profession education that ultimately leads to you know high-quality patient care that we're all striving for.

Deb Tauber- Host: 43:01

Thank you. Now, if the listeners want to join the conference, where would they go?

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 43:07

Well, it's October 23rd through 26th. You can go on gnsh.org. It's we're also on LinkedIn to register, and you need to register soon because it's right around the corner. Being held at the Marriott, well, the housing's at the Marriott Hotel in Copenhagen.

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 43:26

And then Lennox, uh the site University of Copenhagen's been a fantastic partner for us, and and then they're going to be hosting a large part of the conference uh physically at the University of Copenhagen.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 43:40

And Dr. Peter Diekman is kind of our co-host. Usually, when we go to a different country, we find a university partner where we can partner with. And Peter, and probably in the SEM world, a lot of people know uh Dr. Diekman. So that's who we've been working with, and we give a shout out to him.

Deb Tauber- Host: 43:59

Thank you. And just one final question. If our for our listeners who might not be able to attend the conference, you said that you're looking for people to join this movement. How could they do that on a smaller scale?

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 44:11

Well, certainly the the virtual conference.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 44:13

Yeah, virtual in the spring, we will be getting that date, and that'll be posted on gnsh.org. So that's one way. Linux, you got other thoughts?

Dr Lennox Huang- Guest: 44:22

What we oftentimes do as well, and and while people may not be able to make it to Copenhagen, a lot of folks do make it to some of the other conferences, whether it's uh IPSSW, CSIM, uh IMSH, and others. And so we've been trying to have gatherings at each of these conferences too. Some of the gatherings are almost purely social, but uh it's that networking component where you know people can connect and they say, Oh, you know, what we you we were talking about this the other time. What are you working on now? Somewhere a little bit more formal because we're trying to work with a variety of societies to see what we can advance together. And of course, uh getting onto our mailing list. So if you go onto gnsh.org, there's multiple links there and uh easy way to connect there or on LinkedIn. We there's a GNSH webpage. You can look up either Pam, myself, and we will connect you if you if you're not able to find the GNSH uh website itself.

Dr. Pam Jefferies- Guest: 45:17

So we will have a reception at IMSH, I'm sure, in January. That's absolutely that that'll be the next one because we're in October already.

Deb Tauber- Host: 45:26

Yeah, we're in October already. All right.

Jerrod Jefferis- Co-Host: 45:30

But thank you both so much for your time. We appreciate it and uh look forward to seeing what GNSHSH continues to do. And uh you know be cheering for us. Yes, it's a real pleasure.

Deb Tauber- Host: 45:41

Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, our pleasure. Congratulations on the great work and just keep it up and wish you the best for your conference. Happy simulating.

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