NOTEBOOK: Simulated patients have starring roles in UnityPoint Health nurse interviews

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When nurses and patient care technicians interview for positions with UnityPoint Health hospitals, they also physically demonstrate how they would handle real-world patient care situations as part of the hiring process.  

“It’s a unique concept, I think,” said David Stark, UnityPoint Health’s new president and CEO, whose office is just down the hallway from where the simulations are conducted. 

“We use that simulation center to interview folks in a different way than sitting at a table and asking questions,” he said. “We actually go through patient care scenarios and use that simulation lab, and then we make a decision to hire someone based on that. That’s been a very innovative thing that’s paid off.” 

UnityPoint Health — which in Greater Des Moines operates Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Blank Children’s Hospital, Iowa Lutheran Hospital and Methodist West — has used a simulation center for nurse training since 2009. In 2014, UnityPoint Health opened the Dorner-Villeneuve Simulation Education Center in its Education and Research Center at Iowa Methodist. It began incorporating the simulation lab into the hiring process just over two years ago.   

The simulation lab features mock-ups of three medical/surgical rooms, an intensive care unit room, an exam room and an operating suite. The rooms are equipped with lifelike mannequins ranging from a premature baby to a pregnant woman and various ages of children and adults. The center is outfitted with the latest audiovisual system and recording to capture trainees’ handling of common patient procedures on the mannequins, which “breathe” as well as talk. 

UnityPoint began piloting the lab-based interviews in May 2016 with emergency department nurses, using a program called the Interview Simulation Circuit. By the end of 2016, all experienced nurses interviewing for positions for medical-surgical, telemetry, ICU and emergency departments interviewed using the simulation circuit, said Wanda Goranson, director of the simulation lab. In February, all experienced acute care RNs and all patient care technician candidates were added to the circuits. 

So far this year, nearly 350 job candidates have been interviewed using the simulation lab as part of the process.