Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Elevating Team Engagement with Sim Wars: Insights from Whitney Smith of Children's Hospital Colorado

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Elevating Team Engagement with Sim Wars: Insights from Whitney Smith of Children's Hospital Colorado · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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Welcome to Becker's Health Care Podcast. I'm Mariah
1:18
Taylor, assistant editor, and I'm thrilled to be
1:20
interviewing Whitney Smith, simulation program manager at Children's
1:23
Hospital Colorado on the podcast today. Whitney, thank
1:26
you so much for joining me. I'm so
1:29
for this conversation because what a fun initiative
1:32
The Sims Wars is. So I can't wait
1:34
to get into everything you're doing there. But
1:36
before we dive in, I'm gonna turn it
1:38
over to you to introduce yourself and tell
1:40
us a little bit more about your background.
1:43
Thank you so much, Mariah. My name is
1:45
Whitney Smith, as you said. You so eloquently
1:47
introduced me and I appreciate that.
1:50
Happy to be here to talk about just
1:52
one of the many initiatives that we have
1:54
going on at Children's Hospital Colorado
1:56
to increase the engagement of our staff, to
1:59
celebrate all of the hard work that they
2:01
constantly do,
2:02
to be prepared for the patients that they
2:05
take care of on a daily basis.
2:07
And, I I'm just really glad glad to
2:09
be here and to celebrate our staff.
2:13
Amazing.
2:14
Let's dive into
2:16
what are the sim wars. Can you tell
2:18
me a little bit about what happens at
2:20
these events and who participates?
2:23
Happy to. So my first sim wars
2:26
was in 2017.
2:28
I actually saw something like this
2:31
at a conference at the International
2:35
Healthcare Simulation
2:37
Conference in Los Angeles. And it was a
2:40
demonstration of how sim wars
2:43
can be used to,
2:45
have a competition
2:47
but also have a little bit of an
2:49
edutainment
2:49
is what they use. And we sort of
2:51
stole that
2:52
term from the
2:54
first people that did this. And we modeled
2:57
this after something
2:59
that Doctor. Haru
3:01
Okuda did and some of his colleagues. He
3:03
actually published a book on how to incorporate
3:06
sim wars
3:08
in mostly residential or residents, pediatric residents, emergency
3:12
residents, that sort of thing in the academic
3:14
center
3:15
where they could hone in on their, their
3:17
simulation skills in a competitive environment and make
3:20
it fun at the same time. But we
3:22
thought we could take this to a whole
3:23
new level at Children's Colorado
3:25
and
3:26
we incorporated,
3:28
themes and costumes, children's friendly
3:31
type,
3:33
themes. In fact, this year we actually did
3:36
fairy tales and it it really allows our
3:38
teams to be creative and innovative in how
3:41
they're approaching
3:43
teamwork and,
3:45
creativity when they're bringing it to the stage.
3:47
So it's a lot of fun. So we
3:49
thought, you know, there's so many things that
3:50
we could do with this as an organization.
3:53
And originally we wanted to use this to
3:56
socialize our program.
3:58
So many of us know that simulation is
4:00
a valuable tool and it has a very
4:03
direct impact on
4:05
improving our patient outcomes. In fact, it translates
4:09
directly
4:10
what we see at the clinical level,
4:12
but how can we make sure that on
4:14
an organizational
4:16
level,
4:17
our executives,
4:18
our,
4:19
our team members that may not have
4:21
access,
4:23
maybe we're spread out because we're at a,
4:25
a very small center within Children's Colorado. Maybe
4:28
they just don't know all of the different
4:30
things that simulation can offer them to help
4:32
improve patient care.
4:34
So that was the original intent to, to
4:36
bring people together
4:38
to highlight some of the great work that
4:41
our team members are already doing and preparing
4:43
all throughout the year to do a good
4:45
job with patient care. How can we do
4:47
that even better? And so we brought people
4:50
together. We made it an event
4:52
and we wanted it to be fun. We
4:55
wanted to
4:56
encourage innovation
4:57
and creativity,
4:59
and we wanted to to celebrate and have
5:01
an opportunity for people to,
5:04
just to relax,
5:06
laugh, be
5:07
together for once. It's just been a very
5:10
difficult post pandemic for all of our team
5:14
members in healthcare. And we thought this could
5:16
be a great celebration of what we're we're
5:18
doing so well. And it turned into so
5:20
much more than that.
5:22
We are using it now to
5:24
increase our program recognition,
5:26
the recognition
5:28
of our program in the hospital.
5:30
We're even seeing that our team members are,
5:35
getting even more engaged early on all throughout
5:37
the year because they're looking forward to this
5:39
event.
5:41
And, we're seeing just a really high level
5:44
increase in our organizational support. And it's been
5:46
very surprising. We
5:48
are using this to
5:50
really look at all of these different tangible
5:53
and intangible benefits
5:55
that an event like this
5:56
could have for a simulation program and also
5:59
for the organization.
6:02
Amazing.
6:03
Now if I understand correctly, you just completed
6:06
this year's SIM wars. Correct?
6:08
That is right. This was our 3rd event
6:11
that we've we've hosted and it just went
6:14
smashingly. We had an auditorium
6:17
full of
6:18
team members, members from our wonderful foundation and
6:22
our donors. We had members from the quality
6:25
board. We even had the president of our
6:27
hospital
6:28
serve as one of our actors and our
6:31
CMO
6:31
and CNO. It's just
6:33
it's been,
6:35
very, very rewarding to see everybody come together.
6:38
And there's goosebumps had by all. I promise
6:40
you.
6:43
And I understand that, there's teams in these
6:46
Sims events, and there's some kind of a
6:47
prize they can win. So can you talk
6:49
a little bit more about
6:51
what like, how that functioned
6:53
and what that prize was?
6:55
I sure can. So
6:57
this event that we that we host is
7:00
approximately an hour and a half long. So
7:02
we had to really think hard about
7:04
the number of teams that could compete.
7:07
And we weren't quite sure how that was
7:09
going to happen when we first pulled off
7:11
this event when we did it for the
7:12
first time in 2019.
7:14
But it's worked out really well. And initially
7:17
it was our critical care teams from
7:20
our pediatric intensive care, our cardiac intensive care.
7:24
We had members from our emergency department and
7:27
our pediatric emergency department.
7:29
And,
7:31
our flight team was also highlighted
7:33
originally.
7:34
And this year it's grown even more to
7:37
include people that haven't done simulation on an
7:40
organized level
7:41
that we knew about until now. And that
7:44
was our neonatal intensive cares. And so we
7:46
had
7:47
our neonatal intensive care from our Ann Chutes
7:49
Medical Campus
7:51
and we had representatives from our neonatal intensive
7:53
care at our Colorado Springs Campus. And this
7:56
was really huge for us because
7:59
we really wanted to use this,
8:01
as I said before, to socialize the program
8:04
but also to improve and increase the access
8:07
all throughout the organization. So Colorado Springs is
8:10
part of our organization but it's 45 minutes
8:13
away from the Denver metro area. And it's
8:17
always been a challenge
8:18
in anything you do to make sure
8:21
different areas are included. So this was monumental
8:24
for us. So this year in 20,
8:27
24, our organization
8:29
had or our sim wars had representatives from
8:32
the CICU as I said before,
8:34
the PICU who was our returning champions this
8:37
year
8:38
and 2 of our neonatal intensive care units.
8:42
And so that was really great and it
8:43
worked out great because
8:45
our guest moderator
8:47
was, a neonatologist
8:49
herself from immersive designs from Boston Children's Hospital,
8:53
Doctor. Jennifer Arnold, and she was our guest
8:55
moderator who just helped keep the party going.
8:58
And as a simulationist herself,
9:01
she understood how important it was that simulation
9:04
was really highlighted as an impactful tool for
9:07
clinical education and for patient outcomes improvement.
9:11
Amazing. Let's dive a little bit more into
9:13
that. What are some of the patient and
9:14
staff outcomes from this event?
9:17
This,
9:18
this is a great question and it's something
9:20
that I I love to highlight for people
9:23
who may not understand
9:24
that it's more than just
9:27
an event where people are having fun. So
9:29
I mentioned before the intangible and the tangible.
9:32
Right off the bat, the, team member engagement
9:35
was one of the biggest,
9:38
things that we could measure. We went from
9:40
maybe 75
9:41
people filling our auditorium
9:44
to over 250
9:46
people attending this event in person and also
9:49
virtually. So a virtual
9:52
option for folks who are all throughout the
9:54
region in our organization
9:57
was pretty key to make this successful.
10:00
And,
10:01
having the increased engagement
10:03
showed itself in different
10:05
ways following the event. So we had, people
10:09
communicating to me following the event, wanting to
10:12
get involved, folks who are part of multidisciplinary
10:15
team
10:16
that really want to use simulation to improve
10:19
what they're doing as a team and to
10:21
help their patient outcomes.
10:23
For example, I was contacted for
10:26
more simulation,
10:28
experience
10:29
for our south campus,
10:31
our north campus,
10:33
our perioperative
10:34
environment, this is huge because,
10:37
this is groups that,
10:38
really
10:40
love simulation and they value simulation, but they
10:42
just really didn't know how to go about
10:44
doing it in an organized way. So that
10:45
was great.
10:47
The very first year that we did this
10:49
when we had someone in the audience from
10:52
our foundation,
10:54
just by chance someone was there. And it
10:57
resulted after a few more meetings in a
10:59
$550,000
11:01
grant from the from a donor through our
11:03
foundation, through the Society 2221 Society.
11:07
And, that went so far into helping expand
11:11
our program
11:12
and it has really helped us,
11:15
pave the way for
11:17
looking into
11:18
expanding our physical center where we're looking now
11:21
into,
11:23
having a new learning center built and designed,
11:26
which is helping our whole program
11:28
itself in expanding. So,
11:31
as our program expands, we know that we
11:33
need a more
11:34
physical capacity to expand with that, and that
11:37
just led right into
11:39
the pathway that we're looking at. So that
11:41
was really exciting.
11:43
The engagement from our C suite. So that's
11:46
kind of a big thing too because one
11:48
of the things that socializing
11:50
our program has led to is an increased
11:53
partnership in patient safety initiatives
11:55
where we're doing more operational readiness simulations
11:59
and, in situ simulations where we're doing simulations
12:02
in the clinical environment.
12:04
And,
12:05
just having people know that the simulation program
12:08
exists
12:09
leads directly to some of those projects where
12:12
if there's
12:13
new, program expansions
12:16
throughout the organization
12:17
or
12:18
if there's new
12:20
process and policies that are being implemented,
12:23
people now know about us not just because
12:26
of simulation
12:27
and sym wars, but because somebody might have
12:30
known someone that attended sym wars and they
12:33
knew about our program because we do highlight
12:36
some of those,
12:38
initiatives that we're doing during sym wars. So
12:40
it's sort of like a PR event for
12:42
us really. And that's what we use this,
12:44
use this for in the end is really
12:47
highlighting those patient safety initiatives that can be
12:50
impacted
12:51
by simulation.
12:54
Cool. Now
12:55
it sounds like a super fun event. You've
12:57
talked about some of the great outcomes that
12:59
come from it. So if there are systems
13:01
out there that would like to try something
13:03
like this in their own facilities, what advice
13:06
do you have about getting started?
13:08
Well, I would definitely say don't reinvent the
13:11
wheel. So a version of SIM wars
13:14
is being conducted
13:15
in different areas all throughout the nation. But
13:19
if you want to do something like Children's
13:21
Colorado did with SIM wars and take it
13:24
to a whole new level,
13:26
then feel free to reach out to me.
13:28
There's so there's so many things that I
13:30
and our team could offer so that you
13:33
don't have to do this
13:34
on your own. And it really is a
13:36
stepwise process.
13:38
The first thing would say that helped us
13:41
be successful is bringing
13:43
a team of partners that already do things
13:46
simulation wise with you, but making sure that
13:49
those partners,
13:51
are willing to be engaged and think outside
13:54
the box, be creative, be innovative,
13:56
and really push the limits of what could
13:59
be done
14:00
when it comes to simulation
14:02
and a production.
14:04
And, we put those people together in a
14:07
steering committee. So we had about
14:09
15 or 20 people as part of the
14:11
steering committee that started planning well
14:15
into
14:16
maybe
14:17
6 months to 9 months
14:19
prior to the event. And so
14:21
part of that steering committee are people that
14:23
are gonna talk this up and be creative
14:26
and help design scenarios that work with the
14:28
teams on stage
14:30
with the mannequins that we have and how
14:32
the theme
14:34
works with costumes
14:35
and incorporate music and all different types of
14:39
things that we could do. But making sure
14:41
that you have a large team
14:43
that really wants to do that. So having
14:46
a steering committee is really,
14:48
my first
14:49
piece of advice. There is a published book
14:52
that Doctor. Acuda
14:54
has out there on sim wars. So if
14:56
you're interested in looking at the
14:59
the the structure of sim wars when it
15:01
comes to how do you have a grading
15:03
rubric or
15:05
how do you utilize
15:06
judges
15:08
and,
15:09
balance that with an,
15:11
master of ceremonies,
15:13
a moderator
15:14
and judges, and engage the audience at the
15:17
same time. There's an art to that, and
15:19
you can get a lot of that information
15:21
from a lot of different things that are
15:22
published.
15:23
But feel free to reach out to me
15:25
and, you could even see some of the
15:27
ways that we did that on the videos
15:29
that we've put on LinkedIn and on our
15:31
Facebook page through Children's Colorado.
15:34
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining
15:37
me on the podcast today, Whitney. This is
15:38
such a fun initiative, and I hope to
15:41
see more from Sim Wars in the coming
15:43
years.
15:44
If you are looking to catch more,
15:47
interesting initiatives, then consider coming to our clinical
15:50
leadership forum at the Becker CEO and CFO
15:53
roundtable, November 11th through 14th in Chicago. We
15:56
have limited space available for attendees and sponsors,
15:59
so contact us at agenda team atbeckershealthcare.com
16:03
to learn more.