Healthcare Simulation Dictionary

In January 2013, an international group of simulation experts gathered in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., to form a working team whose mission was to create a dictionary of terms used in healthcare simulation. This group recognized a need to compile terms that had been completed by other groups in healthcare simulation and to add more terms. The Healthcare Simulation Dictionary represents the work of many individuals and their societies to compile and refine the dictionary. The goal of this project is to enhance communication and clarity for healthcare simulationists in teaching, education, assessment, research, and systems integration activities. The Agency for Health care Research and Quality (AHRQ) has partnered with the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) and its many affiliates to produce this comprehensive Healthcare Simulation Dictionary and disseminate it widely as part of SSH and AHRQ’s mission to improve patient safety, which includes simulation research.

Since the first edition of the dictionary in 2016, SSH and international affiliate member representatives have met at the International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare annually to define the process for revision and to discuss advances in simulation research, expansion of terms used in research, simulation certification, practice analysis research, and simulation accreditation terminology. By 2019, a clear need for updates and additions to the Dictionary were recommended to support the expanded terms used in healthcare simulation. In the 2020 Healthcare Simulation Dictionary—Second Edition (PDF, 1.7 MB), the following changes can be found:

A section on common abbreviations was added, and 27 abbreviations were included.
40 new terms were added.
12 terms were expanded with additional definitions as reflected in the literature .
An additional referent of "consider also" was added for terms that are not currently in the dictionary, but would support understanding of defined terms.

This is a living document and represents the sum of the work at this moment. Terms and definitions will continue to change and be clarified, added, or deleted over time.

Lori Lioce DNP, FNP-BC, CHSE-A, CHSOS, FAANP is editor of the second edition.

Joseph Lopreiato MD, MPH, CHSE-A, FAAP edited the first edition of the Dictionary, which to date, has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Italian, Russian, and Spanish by volunteer translators.