The healthcare simulation community recently recognized the College of Health Sciences’ simulation team as innovative trail-blazers. During their latest re-accreditation process, reviewers spoke highly of the Simulation Center and were particularly impressed with their online scholarship dashboard.
“We were invited to a panel presentation…to speak about our successful accreditation and how the dashboard works,” said Tracee Chapman, clinical assistant professor and simulation faculty development coordinator.
Reviewers invited Casey Blizzard, simulation operations coordinator, to present at the International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare conference. In turn, Blizzard invited Kaylin Holmquist, the School of Nursing’s instructional design analyst, to join the presentation.
Holmquist designed and built the acclaimed dashboard so the Simulation Center can track their scholarly output.
“Casey is in the business of elevating others, and so I’m just grateful that she reached out to me,” said Holmquist. “It was a very interesting conference, and it highlighted to me that the work we do in the School of Nursing truly is exceptional.”
Holmquist said one of the best parts of her job is being involved in many different functional areas within the School of Nursing. Although she isn’t an expert in the scholarship content displayed in the dashboard, she enjoyed being able to present the school’s accomplishments.
“Going in [the dashboard] and looking through the history of academic achievement from our school…I’m really proud of our faculty and students and staff,” she said.
The panel presentation, hosted by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, was titled “SSH Presents: Exemplary Practices in SSH Accreditation.” Blizzard and Holmquist represented Boise State alongside medical institutions, international universities and another school of nursing.
Data that makes a difference
When Holmquist originally designed the scholarship dashboard, she focused on streamlining various data sources to offer a standardized view. Making it engaging and easy to interact with was also a priority.
“We really wanted to showcase research in a way that enhances the culture of Boise State as a research institution and the School of Nursing as research-focused,” Holmquist said.
The dashboard displays activities such as different types of presentations, peer-reviewed publications and service. Users can filter the dashboard to display data by scholarship type, conferences or individual scholars – including faculty members, simulation staff, student research assistants and community colleagues.
The dashboard helped the Simulation Center meet accreditation standards, such as demonstrating the center’s support for research; providing metrics to assess improvement and evaluate the rate of scholarship; and evidence of the Center’s collaborative efforts.
During her presentation, Holmquist explained how she created the dashboard using various Google products so other institutions could replicate the process for themselves.
It was “very well received,” she said. “Lots of cell phones came out and people were snapping pictures of our slides.”
She saw her presentation as a chance to collaboratively share knowledge for the greater good of healthcare simulation.
“There’s so much room to increase process efficiency and access to information when people learn how to use spreadsheets and dashboards in a meaningful way,” Holmquist said. “If that furthers healthcare in some fashion, then yeah, let’s collaborate, let’s do it.”
For more information about the dashboard, please direct questions to kaylinholmquist@boisestate.edu.