Simucase + SLU
How Saint Louis University incorporates Simucase in OT, SLP programs
Posted April 4, 2023
The Doisy College of Health Sciences at Saint Louis University (SLU) provides students with tools and education to become well-prepared, compassionate health care professionals who give the highest-quality care. Its programs offer students hands-on opportunities with leading-edge research and diverse clinical experiences.
In order to supplement and enhance real-world learning opportunities, the occupational therapy and speech, language, and hearing sciences programs at SLU turn to Simucase as a bridge between the classroom and clinical experiences.
Simucase is an online simulation learning platform that allows users to assess, complete diagnostic findings, make recommendations, and provide intervention for virtual patients. Combining the power of simulation-based learning with a comprehensive patient video library, this leading-edge, patented technology is designed for a variety of fields.
SLU’s SLP program has incorporated Simucase into its curriculum for nearly a decade. Its OT program followed suit when in-person clinical opportunities abruptly ended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and they continued using it even as clinics reopened to students.
In addition to utilizing Simucase to earn clinical hours, both programs rely on it to expose their students to various health conditions and low-incidence patient populations. They also use Simucase to increase students’ competencies and for practice opportunities in a low-stakes setting.
Increased competency
A common problem among graduate schools is the ability to expose students to enough variety across their scope of practice to achieve competency. There are some disorders or diagnoses that students can’t experience as easily because they are low-occuring or are in specialty areas they may not encounter in clinicals. SLU uses Simucase to augment these less-occurring patient populations.
Further, SLU relies on Simucase to put a “face” on various diagnoses to compliment what students are learning in the classroom.
“Simucase is a benefit in a lot of areas of coursework. There’s nothing like experiencing something in real life, but Simucase is a great way to learn when a real person isn’t available. Being able to visualize things and not just read words on paper certainly increases the students’ understanding.”
— Julia Henderson-Kalb, OTD, OTR/L, Assistant Professor and Program Director, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
Clinical foundation + experience
At the undergraduate level, SLU uses Simucase to introduce various health conditions and diagnoses. This not only brings to life what the students are learning in books, but it also allows the programs to save clinic time for in-person experiences and internships needed later in graduate school.
For instance, undergraduate SLP students previously had opportunities to learn in SLU’s on-campus speech-language and hearing clinic. However, their master’s program has grown considerably in recent years, so it became necessary to reserve that clinic time for the graduate-level students. Therefore, SLU started using Simucase with its undergraduate SLP students so they still received patient exposure at that point in their learning.
SLU also reports that sometimes, the in-person opportunities simply aren’t there. For instance, if a patient misses a scheduled appointment, they can augment with Simucase for the missed clinical experiences.
Low-stakes practice
Simucase uses real patient stories, but the virtual setting allows for a safe and supportive practice space. When students make mistakes during the diagnosis and treatment process, they are encouraged to try again until they achieve clinical mastery.
For example, in SLU’s on-campus speech-language and hearing clinic, they treat few patients with hearing loss. Because of this, students often feel less confident with this patient population. Simucase allows them to gain the needed exposure and builds their confidence in a low-stakes experience.
SLU also reports using Simucase as an integrated teaching tool and regularly builds assignments around Simucase to improve students’ understanding of a subject.
Equitable learning
SLU also uses Simucase as a way to standardize assignments. In the live clinical setting, no two student-patient encounters will be the same, which can introduce difficulty when scoring assessments. When students are assigned to Simucase, it standardizes the ability to teach and evaluate because every student does the same assessment.
In the OT program’s adult neuro rehab course for example, the students previously had a one-day fieldwork experience to assess someone who recently had a stroke. Not only was this difficult to coordinate, but each student’s experience was different. They instead incorporated a Simucase stroke patient in this course to allow everyone to see the same patient and go through the same evaluation.
Within the SLP program, faculty use Simucase to teach students how to write a diagnostic report after a full evaluation. Simucase enables each student to do the same assessment, which standardizes the faculty’s ability to teach them.
“We use Simucase in a variety of ways, from exposing our students to an area of our scope of practice that is low occurring to giving students extra opportunities to obtain clinical clock hours. In my specific courses, I use Simucase as a teaching tool or a companion to something I’m already doing and structure assignments or discussions around a simulation.” — Emily Buxbaum, MS, CCC-SLP, Director of Clinical Education, Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
QUICK FACTS:
- Since 2020 alone, Saint Louis University students have submitted over 15,000 simulations.
- Saint Louis University’s occupational therapy and speech, language, and hearing sciences programs have used Simucase across multiple cohorts to supplement learning.
- Over 600 programs in the US and internationally currently use Simucase.
- There are 250+ simulations and 1300+ videos in Simucase’s library.
- In a recent survey, 94% of faculty agree that Simucase increases students’ confidence to practice in real clinical settings.