ASPiH – Association For Simulated Practice in Healthcare

ASPiH, aka The Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare, is a UK-based non-profit membership organization formed in 2010 that is made up of professionals from the fields of healthcare, education and patient safety. These members include researchers, learning technologists, workforce development managers, education managers, administrators and healthcare staff and students. Members of the ASPiH tend to have a genuine interest in both new and innovative methods of learning, and wish to optimize the use of available clinical simulation resources across their work.

About ASPiH

Bridging together undergraduate and pre-registration education as well as postgraduate and post registration training and on-going CPD, membership with this association is available to all health and social care workforce. Through this membership, the association is dedicated to forming a collaborative community to improve the quality, safety and effectiveness of patient care by advancing excellence in simulation in healthcare within workforce development and clinical practice.

In providing insight and opportunity to participating members, the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare aims to provide an effective communication network for those involved in healthcare simulation and technology enhanced learning across the UK and beyond. The ASPiH also seeks to provide quality exemplars of best practice in the application of medical simulation to education, training, assessment and research in healthcare.

To support the expansion and uptake of simulated practice, the association has established benefits and evidence of impact that link the practice of nursing simulation with improvements in overall patient safety and quality of care. Drawn from experience within the association, and from links with relevant educational bodies nationally and internationally, the ASPiH develops and shares key operational and strategic resources to all members.

Furthermore, the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare encourages and supports scholarly development and recognizes the accomplishments of members through wider dissemination of innovative practice at scientific meetings and publications. Keeping to the mission of promoting and supporting simulation-based education and technology, the association has enhanced learning in the pursuit of best practice for patients, learners and partners, ASIH has become a “go-to” independent organization for those looking for expertise, advice and information about surgical simulation and technology enhanced learning.

To offer administrative and business support while managing annual conference logistics, ASPiH has partnered with Executive Business Support (EBS) based in Lichfield, UK. Then, the sequentially formed Executive Committee (EC) has become responsible for developing and implementing the strategic direction of the association and managing all involved affairs to ensure that the association is meeting the documented and enforced standards and objectives.

ASPIH Membership Progress

Offering membership for almost a decade, the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare continues to grow. Helping to promote membership, the ASPIG annual conference in Southport, UK, serves as an important platform for simulation practitioners in the UK to network and learn from each other’s practice.

The number of ASPiH Members fluctuates throughout the year with the obvious increase in the run up to conference. Membership numbers stood at 356 at the end of 2019. The increase in membership fees in 2018, also brought an increase in benefits.

The management of ASPiH memberships through the website continues to provide a more streamlined and easy process for new and existing members. However, telephone and email support remains available. Viewing, editing and renewing memberships can all be done online, with the benefit of the subscription fee @ £65.00 per year. An automatic direct debit service option is proving popular as well, with nearly half of members signing up for this option.

In 2018, the first ASPiH organizational accreditation awards were provided by the association’s accreditation committee at the conference. One of them was an international award – the Orkin Simulation Centre, Landspitali in Iceland. Another award was a simulation centre in the UK – Hull Institute of Learning and Simulation at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

BMJ STEL, the association’s journal continues to grow from strength to strength, and the ASPiH hopes to index the publication soon. The focus of the journal remains on promoting research, innovation and knowledge translation in simulation in healthcare and beyond for the benefit of patient care. The association introduced a new category of submissions called in practice reports to encourage new researchers and practitioners to contribute noteworthy projects to the journal. Through the journal, ASPiH wishes to support the simulation community to become more research active and evidence based helping to make simulation a robust tool to drive forward improvements in healthcare.

ASPiH Annual Conference

The ASPiH annual conference is now established as a leading meeting in the UK for all healthcare professionals involved in simulation-based education (SBE). Again, this includes educationalists, learning technologists, industry colleagues, researchers, patient safety and human factor experts, workforce development and education managers, commissioners, and healthcare staff and students. At the event you can see products from leading medical simulation companies like Laerdal, CAE Healthcare, EMS SimulationIQ, Oxford Medical Simulation, SMOTS UK, Gaumard Scientific, B-Line Medical, Trauma FX, Lifecast Body Simulation and more!

The purpose of the ASPiH conference is to advance the discipline of SBE and provide an innovative scientific program for colleagues and experts to share and disseminate best practice on SBE in healthcare. In working to achieve this goal, the conference provides an opportunity to network formally and informally through its hosting of special interest groups, professional meetings and social program and provides delegates with a forum.

The forum was created to hear and discuss the views of acknowledged experts, to take part in workshops, sessions and courses. During the forum, participants will be granted the opportunity to present their own work through a variety of formats.

In year’s past, the annual ASPiH conference has been held in November and is given a theme specific to that conference ( i.e. “Maximizing Impact” in 2018). Over the course of three days, approximately 500 delegates will attend are eligible to receive 10 CPD points by the Royal College of Anesthetists. There are also keynote speakers, a reception hosted by all the exhibitors and sponsors and nine parallel breakout sessions.

The ASPiH standards of framework and guidance were launched at the conference in 2016, and the ASPiH has since continued to raise awareness of the benefits and encourage individuals and organizations to work towards implementing and achieving some of these standards. In 2017, several publications mapped an accreditation process to the ASPiH standards for simulation-based education.

This comprised of individual, program and organization application forms and a guidance document. An informal consultation gave the ASPiH executive committee and others who had expressed an interest in using the standards for accreditation purposes to comment, challenge and feedback on the process. They could then make any suggestions for preliminary revisions.

Other organizations similar to ASPIH include: SSH (and their meeting IMSH), INACSL, SimGHOSTS, SESAM, Simulation Australia, ASPE, FLASIC, S3 and more!

For more information visit the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare Website!