The Health Innovation Technology and Simulation Program in UT’s College of Nursing received full accreditation in research and teaching from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare.
“I feel honored our program has received simulation accreditation from the Society of Simulation in Healthcare,” said Susan Hébert, simulation director. “The society is a prestigious group of interprofessional health care providers dedicated to improving practice and care of patients. The training we are able to provide through this pedagogy allows us to train nurses in prevention of error and ensure the mistakes which can potentially occur happen in the simulation lab—not on actual patients.”
There are currently only 65 accredited simulation programs from seven countries, of which only two are in Tennessee. The UT College of Nursing is the first-ever standalone nursing program to be accredited in both teaching and research.
The HITS lab provides simulated educational experiences for all nursing clinical courses in the undergraduate and graduate programs. The lab is an organized research unit with a multidisciplinary partnership between UT’s College of Nursing and Tickle College of Engineering. The mission of the lab is to advance simulation and innovation by upholding standards of practice for simulation and advancing knowledge of innovation, technology, and simulation through research.
The College’s three simulation facilities replicate patient care environments. The high-fidelity HITS lab has more than 7,600-square-feet of simulated space and the low-fidelity Learning Lab and Physical Assessment Lab facilitate skills learning. In these spaces, health care providers learn to apply cognitive, technical, and behavioral skills using an interdisciplinary approach.
“SSH accreditation in both research and teaching exemplifies the excellent learning environment that we have created for our students and that we are an innovative test-bed for the development of new health technology,” said Dean Victoria Niederhauser.
For more information the HITS Program, visit the College of Nursing’s website.