Medical simulation extends beyond nursing and medical training to encompass a broad spectrum of allied health disciplines. From Emergency Medical Services to diagnostic imaging and even athletic training, healthcare simulation scenarios connect classroom knowledge with clinical practice to allow learners to enhance their procedural skills and critical thinking in a risk-free environment. Whether you perform a pulmonary function test, respond to cardiac arrest, or position a patient for an X-ray, simulation scenarios ensure proficiency in real-world healthcare settings. This HealthySimulation.com article by EMS Contributor Carrie Gigray, MSHS, CHSE, CHSOS, NRP, will review free resources for allied health simulation scenarios that educators can incorporate into their simulation programs. Be sure to check out our free nursing, medical, and surgical simulation scenarios linked at the bottom of this article as well!
Although there are many resources for healthcare simulation scenarios in Medicine, Nursing, and Surgery, challenge arise for healthcare simulationists in allied health professions to find specific curated scenarios for fields such as Respiratory Therapy (RT), Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Athletic Training (AT), Occupational or Physical Therapy (OT/PT), Speech-Language Pathology (SLP), and Nutrition, Exercise, and Physiology(NEP), to name a few. Regardless of the profession, allied health simulation educators must ensure quality medical simulation scenarios. The first step should be simulation design.
Healthcare Simulation Standards of Best Practice: Simulation Design
The Healthcare Simulation Standards of Best Practice (HSSOBP): Simulation Design specifies clinical simulation scenarios must be designed and developed to achieve the intended outcomes and objectives of the simulation. Each scenario should be crafted in collaboration with subject matter experts following a needs assessment that confirms the necessity of the simulation scenario. Furthermore, SMART objectives should be established—these must be specific, measurable, attainable within the specified timeframe, realistic, include both a pre-brief and a debrief session and undergo pilot testing before implementation.
The following resources are available for a variety of allied health professions, which will continue to grow and evolve. If you know of other free allied health simulation scenario resources we should be include, please email us.
Go4 for Athletic Training provides an article on a series of realistic scenarios designed to enhance the preparedness and response capabilities of athletic trainers. Each scenario emphasizes the importance of assessing available resources to include personnel, equipment, space, and time. In addition to this article, the Go4 platform provides free educational resources, from concussion management tools to sun protection guidelines to medical time-out templates and implementation guidelines to empower athletic trainers to enhance their professional practice.
EMS Basics is an educational platform dedicated to the enhancement of knowledge and skills of prehospital professionals, particularly basic-level providers such as EMR and Basic EMT. Scenarioville is a collection of realistic EMS scenarios designed to simulate a wide range of emergency situations. These scenarios cover incidents such as motor vehicle accidents, assaults, falls, and a variety of medical emergencies. Each healthcare scenario provides a detailed narrative to challenge EMS practitioners to assess and manage patients effectively in the prehospital setting. In addition to Scenarioville, EMS Basics offers a variety of resources linked to other educational resources like websites, blogs, and online tools aimed at broadening the knowledge base of the emergency medical provider.
Zero Hour: America’s Medic is a first-person 3D screen-based simulation from Applied Research Associates, Virtual Heaeros division. This game was developed with Unreal Engine 3 in collaboration with George Washington University’s Office of Homeland Security, funded by a $4.8 million grant. The interactive serious game is for training emergency responders to handle mass casualty incidents. Since the game’s release in 2009, this screen-based distance simulation resource is available to freely download, offering a safe environment for emergency responders to practice and refine their skills without real-world consequences.
The Global Network for Simulation in Healthcare is an international think tank focused on enhancement of patient safety, workforce well-being, and healthcare quality. United leaders from healthcare, academia, and industry tackle healthcare challenges using simulation with the aim to improve health outcomes. GNSH provides a diverse repository of case studies with video vignettes and a brief description called team engagements. These scenarios are openly available as a foundational resource for educators to adapt accordance to their specific training requirements, and they also provide debriefing guidelines. Scenario categories include preventable deaths from sepsis, medication errors, healthcare-associated infections, and care teams.
Pocket Prep is an exam preparation blog which features several EMT Basic simulation scenarios to include airway management, seizures, trauma, medical issues, and assessments. In addition to scenarios for prehospital professionals, Pocket Prep offers over 1,000 practice test questions to cover all five necessary subjects for the NREMT EMT exam: airway, respiration and ventilation, EMS operations, trauma, cardiology and resuscitation, and medical inclusive of obstetrics and gynecology.
Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health is a national collaborative between the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists with the Health Resources and Services Administration and state governments to provide a comprehensive suite of scenarios and healthcare simulation resources to enhance patient safety in maternal healthcare. These resources are designed to ensure health professions teams are well-prepared to recognize, diagnose, treat, and manage medical emergencies during pregnancy and postpartum period. Not only does AIM provide sample case scenarios, but there is also an in-situ drill program manual which enables educators to practice in their clinical settings such as prehospital or midwifery. Other unique resources include realistic training aids such as visual and audio fetal heart rate tracing and video vignettes to increase realism. There are also healthcare simulation preparation checklists, team review and debriefing forms, and customizable presentations designed to assist simulation educators to refine obstetrical emergencies.
England’s eLearning for Healthcare is an educational program in partnership with the National Health Services and professional bodies. Employees, healthcare students and individuals who provide NHS-commissioned care can have free access to over 400 e-learning resources to NHS health and care organizations within the United Kingdom. Registration is necessary through OpenAthens, where e-learning modules inclusive of healthcare simulations cover a range of emergency and patient care situations.
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The Sim Book is a comprehensive online resource with peer-reviewed simulation scenarios created by the collaborative efforts of international content creators founded by Eric McCoy, MD. Resources include simulation scenarios, guides, and resources aimed to improve the quality and effectiveness of simulation-based training. Scenarios categories include cardiology, pulmonary, abdominal/gastrointestinal, neurology, trauma, obstetrical/gynecological, renal, endocrine, oncology, toxicology, eyes, nose, and throat, emergency medical services, infection, pediatrics, and orthopedics. Free to download, healthcare simulation scenarios are easily modified to fit any allied health profession. Each case includes demographics, educational rationale, references, scenario preparation, and facilitator/operations specifics with suggested debriefing and evaluation plans.
The American Council of Academic Physical Therapy library provides over 20 free simulation scenarios crafted to reflect best practices in physical therapy education for academic institutions and ACAPT members. These peer-reviewed scenarios cover a range of patient cases to include musculoskeletal, neurological, and cardiopulmonary conditions. The website also provides a PT-specific simulation scenario template to help rehabilitation professionals and educators create optimal healthcare scenarios. There also is an opportunity to share individual-created simulation-based learning experiences with colleagues to help build a greater repository of activities for the physical therapist.
The SimTech offers an array of free healthcare simulation resources to include scenario kits, technical guides, and best practices for various medical disciplines and emergencies. With a wide range of categories from emergency, trauma, advanced life support, Paramedic, cardiology, obstetrics, pediatrics, respiratory, communication, cardiology, internal medicine, and toxicology, there is a scenario for many allied health professions. Each simulation scenario provides a downloadable text document which outlines all the necessary components for execution. This includes patient simulator settings, vital signs, medical history, and debriefing notes, to ensure health professions educators will have all the tools required to conduct an effective and immersive training session. In addition to free scenarios, SimTech offers multimedia resources access to clinical and diagnostic images and audio databases as well as instructional videos on the moulage to further enhance authentic training experiences.
EM Sim Cases offers a diverse range of peer-reviewed simulation cases for EMS and emergency medicine. The cases cover a range of topics to include cardiology, trauma, toxicology, and pediatric emergencies. EM Sim Cases provide multimedia resources such as instructional videos and images to enhance the realism of the scenario. Each downloadable scenario includes learning objectives, debriefing points, and facilitator guides to enhance training which can easily be modified to the simulation educators’ needs.
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Simucase is an innovative educational platform who allows speech-language pathology, audiology, occupational therapy, and physical therapy learners to evaluate and treat a library of virtual patients. This personalized learning platform is designed to help learners succeed by offering a means to observe, assess, diagnose,e and provide intervention for virtual patients through interactive clinical simulations and repeated practice. Founded in 2000, the resource uses the latest in healthcare simulation technology to simultaneously encourage critical thinking and facilitate alternative clinical education in a no-risk learning environment, to increase patient safety.
Within the platform, the patient video library includes more than 850 video clips cover valuable topic areas in speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and audiology. The library of virtual patients has been expertly designed to measure skills and enhance clinical competency. Simucase currently offers over 100 clinical simulations with virtual patients. Before selection of a desired healthcare simulation, Simucase provides a brief explanation of the case and an estimate of how long the case will take to complete. Cases typically take between 40 and 75 minutes to complete. Learners can also filter cases based on profession, simulation, topic areas, ages, locations, and release dates.
Simulation Canada SIM Scenario Exchange is an open repository of resources, which includes free simulation scenarios, links to free virtual simulations, scenario development tools & templates, and assessment/evaluation tools. The Exchange fosters collaboration amongst simulationists for the sharing, improvement, and adaptation of resources. Currently, there are approximately 200 scenarios available. A free Simulation Canada website account is required to access the simulation materials.
Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons is a free nonprofit committed to participatory, equitable, and open education for all. OER Commons offers an open educational ecosystem for a variety of disciplines to include allied health professions with a public digital library. This vast collection of learning materials provides case studies, simulation scenarios, and multimedia resources in addition to lesson plans. Materials can be customized to fit the needs of specific allied health professions, such as radiological technology or speech language pathology. Users also can utilize interactive tool features such as virtual patient case studies and open-access course modules. Educators also can join specialized groups tailored for their allied health profession to collaborate.
Respiratory Cram is a specialized online platform dedicated to prepare respiratory therapy professionals and students for the National Board for Respiratory Care examinations. Respiratory Cram has over 40 NBRC-style practice patient simulations which are designed to mirror the format and completeness of the actual exam. Each respiratory simulation provides users with a realistic scenario and offers real-time feedback. Beyond simulations, the platform delivers over 200 exam review questions and has a YouTube channel where learners can access additional tutorials, tips, and insights into respiratory therapy content. The subscription provides comprehensive access to all simulations and several courses for exam preparation at $39 per month. Users can experience 2 healthcare simulations prior to commitment for free.
Teachers Pay Teachers is a digital marketplace where educators can buy, sell, and share original educational materials which include healthcare simulation resources. This collaborative educational space provides a wide variety of allied health education resources to include ready-made healthcare simulation scenarios, case studies, skills checklists, and patient assessment exercises which can enhance hands-on health professions education. Educators can find customizable, peer-reviewed content which aligns with their curriculum and clinical training needs to save time. Many resources include detailed instructor guides, debriefing outlines, and rubrics to assess student performance in medical simulations. TpT serves as a valuable tool to enrich simulation-based training, whether for an educator who teaches a trauma scenario for athletic trainers or a therapeutic intervention case study for occupational therapy students.
Practical Clinical Skills from MedEDU LLC is an affordable resource for healthcare assessment and interpretation. Access ranges from free to $19 for Essentials and $38 for Advanced access. The practical skills offered are ECG Interpretation, Heart Sounds, Lung Sounds, Blood Pressure, Medical Terms, and Ultrasound. Depending on the module, there are opportunities for the learner to practice interpretation of diagnostic skills, and graded quizzes to test their knowledge.
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