Birley Place: a virtual community for the delivery of health and social care education

Wright, David J; Greene, Leah; Jack, Kirsten; Hannan, Eleanor; Hamshire, Claire

Abstract

Virtual simulation can provide high-quality learning
experiences through innovative and engaging activities
while also overcoming some of the constraints
associated with physical simulation. We developed
a virtual community, called Birley Place, to facilitate
simulation-based learning activities. Adopting a novel
approach, we modelled the virtual community on the
large metropolitan city in which our institution is based.
Publicly available health and population data were used
to ensure that the homes, businesses and services in the
community were representative of distinct socioeconomic
areas of our city. The residents of the virtual community
were also matched with the real-world areas based
on health and lifestyle data. Our virtual community is
used to facilitate learning activities across our health
and social care degree programmes. In this article,
we summarise how we developed Birley Place, before
providing one example of how it is used to facilitate
the delivery of a large-scale interprofessional education
project. Birley Place is an innovative tool for delivering
online and virtual simulation. The use of this virtual
community facilitates learners’ understanding of the
connection between settings and health status.

Citation

Wright, D. J., Greene, L., Jack, K., Hannan, E., & Hamshire, C. (2021). Birley Place: a virtual community for the delivery of health and social care education. #Journal not on list, 7(6), 627-630. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjstel-2020-000849

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 1, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jun 4, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-07
• Deposit Date: May 29, 2024
• Journal: BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 627-630
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjstel-2020-000849
• Keywords: Health Informatics; Education; Modeling and Simulation