Rapid deployment of a virtual simulation curriculum to prepare for critical care triage during the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada, an Emergency Standard of Care for Major Surge was created to establish a uniform process for the “triage” of finite critical care resources. This proposed departure from usual clinical care highlighted the need for an educational tool to prepare physicians for making and communicating difficult triage decisions. We created a just-in-time, virtual, simulation-based curriculum and evaluated its impact for our group of academic Emergency Physicians. METHODS: Our curriculum was developed and evaluated following Stufflebeam’s Context-Input-Process–Product model. Our virtual simulation sessions, delivered online using Microsoft Teams, addressed a range of clinical scenarios involving decisions about critical care prioritization (i.e., Triage). Simulation participants completed a pre-course multiple-choice knowledge test and rating scales pertaining to their attitudes about using the Emergency Standard of Care protocol before and 2–4 weeks after participating. Qualitative feedback about the curriculum was solicited through surveys. RESULTS: Nine virtual simulation sessions were delivered over 3 weeks, reaching a total of 47 attending emergency physicians (74% of our active department members). Overall, our intervention led to a 36% (95% CI 22.9–48.3%) improvement in participants’ self-rated comfort and attitudes in navigating triage decisions and communicating with patients at the end of life. Scores on the knowledge test improved by 13% (95% CI 0.4–25.6%). 95% of participants provided highly favorable ratings of the course content and similarly indicated that the session was likely or very likely to change their practice. The curriculum has since been adopted at multiple sites around the province. CONCLUSION: Our novel virtual simulation curriculum facilitated rapid dissemination of the Emergency Standard of Care for Major Surge to our group of Emergency Physicians despite COVID-19-related constraints on gathering. The active learning afforded by this method improved physician confidence and knowledge with these difficult protocols. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43678-022-00280-6.