What do SimEPR, SimWard, and SimClass help you and your learners achieve? A side-by-side comparison of delivery context, capacity, faculty tools, and typical use cases to help you choose.
SimEPR is a simulated electronic patient record platform used across nursing, medicine, pharmacy, and allied health programmes in universities and NHS teaching settings. It is designed to orientate and familiarise learners with digital patient record use and develop their digital readiness for clinical practice.
SimEPR offers three delivery modalities. Each shares the same fundamental features — clinical workflows, documentation, observations, and prescribing — but each is configured to specific teaching formats and scalable delivery. The sections below describe each modality in turn, followed by a side-by-side comparison table.
SimEPR's Single-Sim is designed for use alongside a single manikin, standardised patient, or actor in a dedicated simulation suite. Typically, this feature is used by hospital-based simulation departments that run simulations involving single patients.
Single-Sim mode has a two-device set-up within the web-based app: the learner interface and the faculty controller interface. Faculty monitor participant activity, and push observations, investigation results, prescriptions and imaging to instantly reveal hidden results. This teaches learners to respond to new information as the simulation progresses and make appropriate clinical decisions.
The primary educational value is in building familiarity with clinical digital workflows. Navigating patient records, requesting investigations, and documenting decisions in a simulated clinical environment mirrors the structure of real EPR use, focused on one patient. Scenarios auto-reset at session end, supporting back-to-back sessions without manual reconfiguration and saving time for faculty.
SimWard is designed for ward-based simulation, and supports up to 15 simulated patients simultaneously where learners manage a caseload rather than a single encounter. It supports larger-scale paperless simulation education, and is widely used for tariff-eligible simulation programmes such as Simulated Practice Learning (SPL) placements.
The educational focus is collaborative shared patient care that can take place in a physical ward environment or in tabletop activities. Faculty can monitor the activity of multiple learners in real time, assess prioritisation, handover, task management, and team-based documentation, and push observations, investigation results, and prescriptions to update scenarios as they progress.
Where SimEPR Single-Sim centres on one patient in depth, SimWard widens the picture to multiple patients, competing demands, and clinical prioritisation.
SimClass is the independent learning modality, designed for asynchronous, large-cohort delivery. It supports up to 250 students working at their own pace on objective-based activities.
Learners work on case-based learning and the software can be used to support tariff-eligible placements, such as Simulated Practice Learning placements. It can also be used as an adjunct for OSCE preparation and assessments.
Faculty can review and mark activity in the controller, either in real-time, or after the session. This allows for both asynchronous delivery and live facilitation. As with Single-Sim and SimWard, investigations and results can be pushed, allowing for patient records to dynamically update over time.
As the software is web-based, it doesn't require installation. The simulated EPR can be used in settings beyond the simulation lab: classrooms, lecture theatres, and home study. SimClass is the newest of the three modalities as the platform continues to develop in response to how healthcare education is actually delivered.
All three modalities share the same simulated EPR environment. The differences are in delivery format, scale, and faculty workflow.
| Dimension | SimEPR Single-Sim | SimWard | SimClass |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery Context | |||
| Setting | Simulation suite Two-device set-up alongside a manikin, standardised patient, or actor in a dedicated sim room. | Ward environment Physical ward setting or tabletop exercise in a classroom. | Anywhere with a device Classroom, lecture theatre, and home study. Web-based, no specialist space required. |
| Learner format | Individual with faculty Small teams interacting with a single patient record under direct observation. | Collaborative team Multiple students sharing care across a patient caseload, working as a ward team. | Independent asynchronous Students work individually at their own pace on objective-based activities. |
| Faculty role during session | Real-time control Faculty monitor live activity and push observations, investigations, and prescriptions live from the controller. | Multi-patient real-time monitoring and control Faculty oversee activity across all patients and multiple learner devices from a single controller view. | Live monitoring or post-session review Faculty can review learner activity in real-time and push observations, investigations and prescriptions, as well as review activity at the end of the session. |
| Session setup and reset | Auto-reset Scenarios reset automatically at session end. Supports back-to-back sessions. | Reusable patient sets Learner activity can be reset and scenarios returned to their baseline state, ready for the next group. | Reusable patient sets Learner activity can be reset, allowing redeployment to the next cohort of learners. |
| Capacity & Scale | |||
| Patient / student capacity | Single patient One patient per session. Designed for focused, high-fidelity encounters. | Up to 15 patients Multiple patients managed simultaneously by a team of learners. | Up to 250 students Large cohorts working independently on individual activities. Each session can hold up to 15 patients. |
| Login and access | Per-session setup Faculty configure the session; learner accesses via the sim room device. | No student-specific logins Reduces setup friction. Learners join via shared session-linked generic login. | No student-specific logins Learners join via a shared session-linked generic login. Activity is timestamped with a unique identifier. |
| Educational Application | |||
| Learning emphasis | Clinical depth EPR navigation, documentation, investigation requesting, prescribing — one patient, full attention. | Clinical breadth Prioritisation, handover, task management, team-based documentation across a caseload. | Independent practice Case-based reasoning, self-directed learning, exam preparation at scale. |
| Typical use cases | High-fidelity single-patient sim sessions Acute or deteriorating patient simulations, clinical skills teaching, interprofessional sim days, evaluation of decision-making and documentation. | Multi-patient, collaborative simulation Ward-based simulation, SPL placement, interprofessional team exercises, clinical prioritisation training, tabletop exercises. | Large-cohort activities Case-based learning in a classroom, lecture theatre or home environment. Software is web-based and no installation is required. |
| Evaluation and feedback | Real-time observed clinical activity Faculty observe EPR use in real time alongside clinical decision-making. The generated activity log supports debriefing and can be exported to PDF. | Team-based observation Faculty track collaborative ward activity across learners and patients. Activity can be exported to PDF for debriefing and portfolios. | Scalable marking Timestamped activity tracked across learners independently completing objectives. Faculty review and mark via the controller and can export to PDF. |
| Faculty Tools & Oversight | |||
| Monitoring visibility | Single-device focus Controller allows monitoring EPR activity of the single device in the sim room beside the manikin/patient. | Ward-wide overview The controller provides visibility across all patients and multiple learner devices as students collaboratively manage a simulated ward. | Cohort-level review The controller provides real-time visibility of each learner's activity, plus ability to review and mark at session end. |
| Debriefing support | Documented decisions Activity from the simulation device provides a concrete data record for structured debrief. | Team activity log Ward-level timestamped activity supports debrief on prioritisation, handover, and team dynamics. | Individual activity records Each student's completed work is available for individual feedback or cohort-level review. |
The choice is driven by the teaching context. Many institutions use more than one modality: SimEPR Single-Sim for high-fidelity sessions, SimWard for ward-based simulation days, SimClass for large-cohort independent learning.
What ties them together is the shared underlying EPR training environment, which means learners build consistent digital literacy regardless of which modality they encounter.
To find out more about SimEPR Single-Sim, SimWard and SimClass, head to the SimEPR page.
Visit the SimEPR page
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