Health care educator training in simulation: A survey and web site development

Background: Simulation is becoming ubiquitous in nursing education, but many educators do not have the necessary training to use simulation effectively. Methods: This article describes a collaborative process by which our training initiative gathered data on regional training needs of health care educators and designed in-person and online educational resources to improve education for nurses and other health professions. Results: Our online survey showed that only 23% of the 66 respondents had used simulation in teaching. The training topics rated most helpful were teaching interprofessional communication, leading a postsimulation debriefing, and integrating simulation into course curricula. Based on this survey, we developed and publicly disseminated four basic and three advanced online simulation courses that can be taken by educators of nursing and other health professionals at no cost. Conclusions: Funds for faculty development in simulation are generally scarce. The InCITE simulation online courses provide no-cost basic and reliable education in the use of simulation.