Exploring Validation and Verification: How they Different and What They Mean to Healthcare Simulation

The healthcare simulation (HCS) community recognizes the importance of quality management because many novel simulation devices and techniques include some sort of description of how they tested and assured their simulation's quality. Verification and validation play a key role in quality management; however, literature published on HCS has many different interpretations of what these terms mean and how to accomplish them. The varied use of these terms leads to varied interpretations of how verification process is different from validation process. We set out to explore the concepts of verification and validation in this article by reviewing current psychometric science description of the concepts and exploring how other communities relevant to HCS, such as medical device manufacturing, aviation simulation, and the fields of software and engineering, which are building blocks of technology-enhanced HCS, use the terms, with the focus of trying to clarify the process of verification. We also review current literature available on verification, as compared with validation in HCS and, finally, offer a working definition and concept for each of these terms with hopes to facilitate improved communication within, and with colleagues outside, the HCS community.