Dear colleagues,
I am very pleased to be a member of the "European Nurse Educators Network". I got invited a bit by accident. But often great things happen by accident... This initiative is important and just at the right moment.
Let me elaborate this a bit:
I am dean of a Nursing School in Lausanne Switzerland (www.hecvsante.ch) and coordinator of a simulation lab. Our curriculum offers a 4 year Bachelor degree program. We have always fostered active learning pedagogies and skills and simulation has been an important part of it.
For the last 5 years i have been actively involved in the nursing simulation promotion movement, that rooted essentially in the USA and emerged out of the patient safety and quality of care considerations (1999 -2004 - IOM "To Err is Human").The USA, Canada and Australia really stimulated high fidelity simulation, Europe focused a bit more on Standardized patients, hybrids and curriculum integration.The reasons of these differences were merely cultural and financial.
The simulation movement has grown a lot the last 5 years, not only in numbers of simulation centers but also in the amount of scientific papers published. A number of organizations do represent the international simulation communities such as SSIH, INACSL, SESAME, ASHE, ASPE etc.
All the associations had the great initiative to collaborate in a global simulation initiative to ccordinate promotion of simulation in healthcare.
I am involved as international coordinator of The International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL).
As an international nursing association, INACSL wants to bring together simulation enthousiasts and experts worldwide. Internationalization, for INACSL, is identified as the development and implementation of a process of integrating an international, intercultural and global dimension into the purpose, promotion and delivery of simulation in nursing [education]. It is not about goal setting but about adopting an iterative process that aims internal and external quality improvement, that gives the organization new possibilities to compare, to share and influence, to grow culturally and trans-culturally, to promote cooperation and solidarity, to boost creativity in research, to gain knowledge through networking and to improve accountability.
Initiatives, such as the "European Nurse Educators Network", could easily be part of INACSL as a satelite organization, and without reinventing the wheel, benifit of the expertise, knowledge and infrastructure of a 10 year old organization.
Please visit www.inacsl.org and think about this proposal. I would love to elaborate fully for the upcomming meeting this spring.
Greetings
Patrick van Gele
PS: Also, I would love to invite you to participate in the annual INACSL conference in Orlando, Folorida:
10th Annual International Nursing Simulation/Learning Resource Centers Conference
Discover the Magic of Simulation
Pre-conference: June 15, 2011
Conference: June 16-18, 2011
Hilton Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando FL
Pre-Agenda Registration is now open: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JMSNVQZ
Patrick Van Gele
Dean of Nursing Faculty - HECVSanté
University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland
International coordinator INACSL