Simulation Research

Research is being done worldwide on the use of simulation in healthcare education, training, and to develop and test new technology. Several professional simulation organizations are studying and making recommendations regarding the future of simulation research, including the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, who facilitated a research consensus summit.

This summit was held in January 2011 in New Orleans. A supplemental journal was printed with the results of this discussion and conclusions. [Simulation in Healthcare: Journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare; Monographs from the First Research Consensus Summit of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. Vol. 6, August 2011 Supplement].

There were  ten topics determined in the summit to be important for study, including: Simulation for Learning and Teaching Procedural Skills; Simulation-Based Team Training in Healthcare; A Path to Better Healthcare Simulation Systems; The Study of Factors Affecting Human and Systems Performance in Healthcare Using Simulation; Evaluating the Impact of Simulation on Translational Patient Outcomes; Research Regarding Methods of Assessing Learning Outcomes; and Simulation-Based Assessment and the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals.

Many individuals and groups at OHSU have conducted simulation research and the details of their projects are listed within the program sites.

Funding Opportunities for OHSU Simulation

Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

DEADLINE: May 6, 2012

APSF accepts applications in one of two categories of identified need: CLINICAL RESEARCH and EDUCATION AND TRAINING. Each year, we strive to fund at least one grant in each of the two categories. Highest priority is given to:

• Studies that will yield results that directly increase patient safety, improve patient outcomes, and/or decrease incidence or severity of complications, morbidity, or mortality;
• Studies that address peri-anesthetic safety problems for relatively healthy patients;
• Studies that are broadly applicable to large numbers of patients AND that promise improved methods of patient safety with a defined and direct path to implementation into clinical care; or
• Innovative methods of education and training to improve patient safety; or
• The use of information technology to enhance perioperative patient safety; or
• Standardization of perioperative protocols to improve patient safety.

Research proposals will be evaluated primarily for a potential contribution to patient safety, and subsequently for scientific merit, feasibility, and applicability.

Areas of research interest include, but are not limited to:

• New clinical methods for prevention and/or early diagnosis of mishaps;
• Evaluation of new and/or re-evaluation of old technologies for prevention and diagnosis of mishaps;
• Identification of predictors of negative patient outcomes and/or anesthesiologist/anesthetist clinical errors;
• Development of innovative methods for the study of low-frequency events;
• Measurement of the cost effectiveness of techniques designed to increase patient safety;
• Development or testing of educational content to measure, develop and improve safe delivery of anesthetic care during the perioperative period;
• Development, implementation, and validation of educational content or methods of relevance to patient safety; and
• Development of innovative methods for prevention of medication errors.

For a more detailed explanation of guidelines and application process see attached and/or visit:

http://www.apsf.org/grants_guidelines.php

Intuitive

DEADLINE: June 1, 2012

The purpose of these grants is to support technology research in the field of surgical robotics, or related fields. Successful proposals will address clinically-relevant technology development. Grants will be awarded to researchers at non-profit academic institutions worldwide. Awards will be conferred on a competitive basis by submission of a grant application.

Applicants may apply for $10,000 to $50,000 of funding per project (US Dollars, total costs). The grant monies can be used to fund salaries, equipment, supplies and/or travel required to support the proposed research project for a period of up to one year.

Applicants must first submit a Letter of Intent to propose (LOI), as detailed below.

A two-page letter of intent to propose should be submitted by all grant applicants in 12pt type face. Submissions should consist of 5 parts:

• Summary: one or two sentence proposal overview.
• Description of Problem/Background.
• Purpose, Hypothesis and Methods of research (not more than 500 words) for the project.
• Capabilities: Indicate the identities, capabilities and credentials of investigators as well as any participating institution. Include contact information for applicant principle investigator.
• Budget: Include a rough project budget that includes estimated costs for staff, equipment, consumables, and other direct costs. Applicants can request up to $50,000 in total costs, with no more than 20% of this total constituting indirect costs.

For a more detailed explanation of guidelines and application process see attached and/or visit:

http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/company/educational-grants/technology_grants.html

Laerdal Foundation

DEADLINE: October 1, 2012

Projects to be considered for support from the Foundation should be clearly related to acute medicine.Suitable projects should comprise one or several of such elements as experimental or clinical research, diagnosis, treatment and transport of patients with acute life threatening disease or trauma, and development or accomplishment of education. Preferred projects would be connected with out-of-hospital acute medicine or would have special practical significance. Travel in connection with study periods or congress attendance, or measures to implement acute medical measures without special research or training-related relevance, normally do not qualify for support from the Foundation.

Any application for project support from the Foundation should be submitted electronically, using the official application form.

The completed application form should provide all the background information necessary to assess the project. Useful additional information, such as references, study protocols, C.V.'s, publications etc. may be enclosed. However, such enclosures should only supplement and in no way replace the description of the project in the application form. Applications will be assessed biannually by the board.

For a more detailed explanation of guidelines and application process see attached and/or visit:

http://www.laerdalfoundation.org/soknadsskjema.html

Google

DEADLINE: October 15, 2012

The intent of the Google Research Awards is to support cutting-edge research in Computer Science, Engineering, and related fields. We ask applicants to categorize their proposals into one of the following broad research areas of interest to Google:

• Economics and market algorithms
• Education innovation
• Geo/maps
• Human-computer interaction
• Information retrieval, extraction, and organization
• Machine learning and data mining
• Machine perception
• Machine translation
• Mobile
• Natural language processing
• Networking
• Policy and standards
• Privacy
• Security
• Social networks
• Software engineering
• Speech
• Structured data and database management
• Systems (hardware and software)

Full-time faculty members from universities worldwide are eligible to serve as Principal Investigators (PIs) or co-PIs on Research Awards proposals. Faculty members may submit one proposal per funding cycle as a PI or a co-PI unless they received an award the previous round. In that case we ask that PIs wait until the following round to apply for funding again, whether or not the projects are related. More details, including the definition of a PI and our eligibility criteria can be found in our FAQs.

This advice on drafting a strong proposal, written by a group of Google researchers and engineers involved in the review and selection process, is an excellent place to start as you prepare an application for the Research Awards program.

The application process for the Research Awards includes filling out an online form requesting basic information and uploading a PDF proposal via the form.

For a more detailed explanation of guidelines and application process see attached and/or visit:

http://research.google.com/university/relations/research_awards.html

OHSU Faculty Research and Expertise

OHSU faculty and staff have demonstrated leadership in the use of simulation in education and practice, as well as in research.  See this compilation of recent simulation-related presentations by OHSU faculty.

Archived Presentations

OHSU Faculty Presentations at the IMSH 2011