Table 5 Hospital leaders and simulation facilitators retrospectively assess the use of simulation-based activities as appropriate

Experienced contributions of simulation

We have learned that recruiting and training and caring for healthcare professionals in a pandemic situation like this is incredibly important—or you can have as much equipment and facilities as you want, but it breaks down. So perhaps to have an even greater focus on how the simulation-based training can take care of the psychosocial issues.. (ID-8)

Personal focus:

Reduced stress and increased well-being for employees

Hospital leaders and simulation facilitators retrospectively assess the use of SBA as appropriate to prepare for a pandemic crisis

yes we have gathered all the teams because in the beginning everyone sat and wrote about their procedures for the teams. And one team had one kind of infection control rule, the other had different infection control rules and the third had yet other infection control rules. Then an anesthesia nurse came back from quarantine and he also reads the procedures, he also says that they are about the same things but there are different things. Here you must gather. We also changed the procedures. So all the things there have come into place now. (ID-6)

System focus:

Revealed several risk factors in the hospital that were improved

Consolidated written procedures and making them more coherent

There has been a lot of talk about it afterwards. We really saw the utility of simulation during the pandemic. Of course, I was about to say that if the strategy was not rooted before, then it is now. At SimRåd (the hospital simulation advisory board) which was recent, it was like… then people were much more involved in the management team in terms of understanding how to use simulation… (ID-4)

Organizational focus:

Increased the credibility for simulation as a method both internally and externally

I do not think we would be able to reach so many if you were to collect personnel to a kind of lecture… So I have now learned that it can be an incredibly potent tool to ensure people such a basic knowledge that is absolutely essential In such a situation as this is. (ID-8)

Educational focus:

Simulation appears to be an effective pedagogical method