SC43 Simulation for developing healthcare graduates empathy skills: virtual empathy museum

In healthcare, empathy is considered a basic component of therapeutic relationships and a critical factor in patients’ definitions of quality care. More than 200 studies have demonstrated the positive impact of empathic healthcare interactions on patient outcomes.1 There is also compelling research demonstrating that healthcare devoid of empathy results in a wide range of negative psychological and physiological outcomes for patients.2 Further, healthcare professionals who practise without empathy are at heightened risk of depression, burnout and attrition.2 While it is reasonable to assume that most healthcare students have an empathic disposition, evidence suggests that empathy levels often decline during the period of enrolment in an undergraduate health degree. Despite the need for more attention to the development of empathy as an employability skill, many healthcare programs only pay lip service to this concept.Against this backdrop we developed a Virtual Empathy Museum (VEM): an innovative digital resource funded by an Australian Technology Network of Universities grant. The VEM includes evidenced-based simulations, digital stories, and a range of other educational materials, designed to enhance healthcare students and practitioners’ empathy skills and enable them to make a positive impact on patient care.This presentation will introduce the VEM with the aim of starting a conversation (or perhaps even a ‘movement’) that leads to empathy being included as an integral component of every healthcare curriculum. The relationship between empathy and patient outcomes will be explored; and the results of a systemic review that examined the effectiveness of immersive and experiential simulation-based interventions in empathy education will be presented.2 ReferencesTrzeciak, S., Roberts, B.W., and A. J. Mazzarelli (2017). Compassionomics: Hypothesis and experimental approach. Medical Hypotheses107: 92–97.Levett-Jones, T., Cant, R., Lapkin, S. (2019). A systematic review of the effectiveness of empathy education for undergraduate nursing students. Nurse Education Today. 75 April 2019, 80–94.