Building Consortiums: They Begin with a Sharing of Ideas

apples“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples, then you and I still have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” — George Bernard Shaw

Simulation Health Care Consortiums begin with a sharing of ideas. Often times the ideas involve a common opportunity or threat, or both. We have noticed in our research that many simulation consortiums began in a similar fashion. A common pattern of development seems to include:

  • Beginning with a pilot project and growing into a project beyond the resources that one organization may have available.
  • Many consortiums began with concerns about a predicted nursing shortage.
  • Health care data, demand and supply information of nursing graduates was not readily available to all potential partners.
  • Funding shortages made expansion of programs difficult to grow alone.
  • Academic and service leaders organized themselves to share goals, work, and benefits of simulation healthcare centers.
  • Partnerships formed among health organizations, universities, community colleges, and community groups.
  • They shared what they learned together.

Benefits of Consortiums

The main benefits of Simulation Health Care Consortiums are:

  1. Potential for sharing resources
  2. Decreasing the costs of health care
  3. Bridging the gap in health care education through multi-disciplinary work
  4. Improving health care teams for quality, safe patient care

Challenges of Consortiums

Some of the challenges of Simulation Health Care Consortiums include:

  1. It represents a new pedagogy of learning that is student centered and experiential
  2. Different evaluation and expectations for clinical education
  3. Scheduling differences make co-learning a challenge
  4. There are few defined models for training students and professionals in simulation methodology

We would be interested in hearing additional thoughts from you on the benefits, challenges, and experiences you have had in developing simulation health care education centers. Please post your questions, ideas, challenges, or other issues with getting started with your consortium or in maintaining a consortium you are involved.

Thanks!  Pam and Jim