ICU UNITED: A Scalable Model for Cross-Unit Simulation in Critical Care

Simulation-based medical education (SBME) is a learning tool for health care providers and medical teams. Despite widespread use across health systems and teaching hospitals, instructional guidelines and standardized approaches for its implementation are lacking. Furthermore, the diversity of techniques, methods, and curricula introduces variability in simulation program design. Many programs remain isolated within individual clinical units or departments and seldom integrate multidisciplinary teams, which limits opportunities for collaboration or system-level learning. We describe our critical care SBME program, ICU UNITED, at Seattle Children's Hospital and how it fits within the simulation landscape while addressing many SBME shortcomings. ICU UNITED is an innovative, cross-unit simulation program that integrates in situ sessions through a shared resource model across the pediatric, cardiac, and neonatal ICUs. We present an instructional framework for longitudinal program organization and individual session design, emphasizing clear scenario objectives, learner participation, and measures of participant satisfaction to support program sustainability. This framework provides a pragmatic model for programs seeking to grow, develop, or expand an interdisciplinary simulation program capable of assessing and addressing system-level challenges.