Why We Build Practice, Not Training: The Case for Reps in Patient Communication
How simulation makes for better feedback in Patient Experience training, and why the clinicians of tomorrow need a place to fail safely and build trust quietly.
How simulation makes for better feedback in Patient Experience training, and why the clinicians of tomorrow need a place to fail safely and build trust quietly.
Last week I put our patient simulator in the hands of one of our advisors, a people and learning leader who has spent his career building training programs inside large companies, and asked him to play a nurse. He’s not a nurse. He said so about ten seconds in.
“I don’t really understand how to be a nurse, you know what I mean? This actually felt like if I walked into a hospital and was pretending to be a nurse, and this guy was like, hi, you’re in my room, what are we here to do? And I’m like, I don’t know.”
That’s the most honest description of a first simulation I’ve ever heard, and it’s why I’m writing this. Because what he said next explains, better than I ever have, why we do what we do.
Simulations aren’t real life, and that’s the point.
His take was that the problem isn’t the simulation. It’s what we ask people to do inside it.
“Any sort of learning experience is already weird. Maybe some people are gung-ho, but most people are just a little bit like, this is weird, and I’m being graded, and I don’t want to mess up. If you have an audience, it makes it feel weird. If it doesn’t feel like real life, it’s going to be a blocker.”
So a student walks into their one precious standardized patient session carrying all of that, and they spend it acting. Trying to look competent. Trying to get a good score. And the thing that would actually help them, which is to be themselves and see what happens, never gets to occur.
John Doe
Codetic
You’ll learn to have hard patient conversations as your real self, not as someone performing for a grade. Through repeated practice with a virtual patient, you’ll build skills in the six core communication areas that HCAHPS scores measure, such as showing respect and making sure a patient feels heard, even when delivering bad news or dealing with an angry family member. After each session, you’ll hear how the patient experienced the conversation and get a summary scored on 32 behaviors linked to better outcomes.
That feedback helps you notice what to keep and what to adjust, and by practicing at increasing levels of difficulty, you’ll build composure and consistency until good communication becomes second nature.
It’s a virtual patient simulation platform that lets clinicians and students practice patient communication, then get feedback from the patient’s point of view.
Each session has three parts: the conversation with a virtual patient, feedback from the patient’s perspective delivered through a coach, and a narrative summary with scores across the six core HCAHPS communication skills.
Trying to perform for a grade gets in the way of learning. Being your honest self lets you see what actually works and decide what to keep and what to adjust.
Scoring is based on 32 communication behaviors, backed by 150 research papers and tested against thousands of de-identified real patient conversations. Proficiency means earning a good score, then earning it at increasing difficulty, and holding it consistently over time.
Scoring is based on 32 communication behaviors, backed by 150 research papers and tested against thousands of de-identified real patient conversations. Proficiency means earning a good score, then earning it at increasing difficulty, and holding it consistently over time.
Run unlimited reps with a virtual patient, hear how they felt from the other side of the bed, and build the communication skills that leave patients feeling heard, even when the news is hard.