“Simnovators” gather in Montreal to launch special British Medical Journal supplement on improving health care
On March 29, Â鶹AV’s Steinberg Centre for Simulation and Interactive Learning launched a special Simnovate supplement of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning. The event, held at the Omni Hotel in Montreal, featured an academic symposium as a sequel to last May’s highly successful Simnovate International Summit, which drew 150 “simnovators” from around the world.
“The mission of the original Simnovate Summit was really about simulation, innovation and education to deliver better health care,” explains Dr. Raj Aggarwal, Director of the Steinberg Centre for Simulation and Interactive Learning, and mastermind of the event, a major international initiative bringing together the domains of simulation, education and innovation in the health care arena with a mission to draw on innovations across several diverse fields – including medicine, aviation, gaming, engineering, policy and the arts – to improve health care delivery.
The response from the initial cohort of “simnovators” was tremendous, with a second summit eagerly awaited. “I think the consensus was that Simnovate was not just a summit or a conference, but rather the birth of a movement,” notes Matthieu Crepy, an engineer who was part of Simnovate’s Youth Innovation showcase.
Dr. Kedar Mate, Senior Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and a keynote lecturer at Simnovate called it a “magnificent community of scholarship which will surely be a platform upon which many discoveries are made.”
Even coinage of the term “simnovate” has caught on, notes Dr. Aggarwal. “It’s become a word that people associate with the work we’re doing here at Â鶹AV and with this whole mission.”
“A revolution is taking place in the field of health care education: more and more universities are equipping their laboratories with highly sophisticated equipment,” comments Marie-Josée Blais, Assistant Deputy
Minister, Science and Innovation Sector, in the Ministère de l’Économie, de la Science et de l’Innovation, who spoke about the Quebec Research and Innovation Strategy at the supplement launch event.
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