The University of Manitoba Chooses UbiSim in Program Expansion to Address Nursing Shortage

“We increased our program by 50%, but as you can imagine, physical space in the hospitals has not increased by 50%. And we're not the only program in Manitoba that has expanded,” said Kimberly Workum, RN, BScN, MEd, CHSE, CCNE. Workum is the Director of the Clinical Competence Assessment Centre and Digital Strategy at the University of Manitoba College of Nursing. 

“Getting clinical spots is next to impossible. We are using 50% simulation to meet their clinical time, and one-third of that time is spent in immersive VR,” said Workum. “We wouldn't be able to do this program expansion without UbiSim.” 

Key Takeaways:

- UbiSim is used by all 1100 undergraduate nursing students and now accounts for 33% of simulation time in the BSN program

- Students feel more engaged, present, and prepared for clinicals with UbiSim 

- UbiSim’s custom scenario creation, growing catalog, and flexibility deliver good ROI  

Every Learner is an Active Participant

“In UbiSim, everybody is an active participant. The student in the headset is actively engaged in the simulation and the student driving the simulation also has to be critically thinking about what might be the next step. So the students definitely feel more engaged and more present with this mode of simulation, ” said Workum. “They definitely verbalize to us that they feel more prepared for clinical [with UbiSim] than in our other simulation models.”

“Students feel that the learning is second to none as far as the responsibility and the independent thinking and the clinical judgment. Clinical judgment is so important with the Next Generation NCLEX, and this is almost like throwing them in a hospital room to look after a patient.” 

What They Love About UbiSim

It works well for undergraduate nursing students

“What I love about UbiSim is that it doesn't stop growing, it's constantly adding new assets and updating things,” said Workum. “It was made by nurses, for nurses. Different products serve different needs, but I find UbiSim to be the most flexible and adaptable to serve our needs for the undergraduate program. Our undergraduate program now exclusively uses UbiSim.” 

You can create your own scenarios 

“We really like the ability to create our own scenarios because we have a very robust simulation program with a lot of simulations that we have developed ourselves and that are very important to our program. And we were able to translate those into UbiSim.”

Good return on investment

“The return on investment is so incredible. You know, I could never see myself standing behind purchasing another high-fidelity manikin and creating another large simulation room when you can buy the software at the same cost and can have any room, any patient, any scenario that you could ever want. All you need is an internet connection and a headset.” 

Screen-Based VR Simulation Wasn’t Robust Enough

“When the pandemic hit and we had to get our students to go virtual in about a week, we did that with screen-based simulations. Although it suited our needs at the time, we saw that the point-and-click technology wasn't robust enough in that the answers were already there for the students. It gave them the ability to click on something that maybe they wouldn't have thought of themselves, whereas in an immersive environment, they have to troubleshoot and figure it out all by themselves.“ 

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