H ealthcare simulation centers are powerful tools for training healthcare professionals. Now, Georgia College & State University offers a new certificate program designed to make these centers more effective.

The College of Health Sciences has developed a one-year, graduate healthcare simulation certificate program to equip educators with best practices for teaching aspirant healthcare providers. The new Healthcare Simulation Certificate is the first of its kind in Georgia.

“Healthcare simulation educators all share a common end-goal, which is to improve patient outcomes,” said Dr. Sterling Roberts, director of the Georgia College Simulation Center and assistant professor of nursing. “With this program, we can prepare educators to conduct simulation training in academia and other settings according to best-practice standards.”

In healthcare simulation centers, students practice patient care using tools like specialized manikins and standardized patients—someone trained to act as a real patient.
 
Students need guidance from faculty and healthcare practitioners who understand the equipment and its use for training. In this program, graduate students learn best-practice standards, simulation design, policy development and more.
 
Following instruction, faculty work with each student to create a clinical path that fits students’ individual needs.

“Where I work currently, we utilize simulation, but not as effectively as we could be,” said Ashley Barnes, a doctorate student of nursing practice. “I have learned so much that will help grow my organization’s current program, and it really reignited my love and desire for simulation.”

“Once I complete the program,” Barnes said, “I want to continue to improve my simulation knowledge and sit for the Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator exam.”
 
In August 2022, the Georgia College Simulation and Translational Research Center received provisional accreditation through the Society for Simulation in Healthcare—one of two University System of Georgia institutions with this distinction.

“While I had some idea about simulation, I really had no knowledge of how they were structured and run,” said Tonya Jewell, a doctorate student in the certificate program. “Learning these news skills will better equip me as a nursing instructor to develop and promote critical thinking and knowledge for my own students—so they can be better nurses.”

“I cannot say enough about Dr. Roberts and the simulation team,” she said. “They are truly experts in simulations and very willing to share their knowledge so we, too, can become experts.”