How CU Anschutz built communication competencies – and showed it worked.

If you’re weighing communication scenarios, the practical questions are the ones CU Anschutz already answered: what to build, how to embed it, and how to measure improvement.

5

Curriculum modules

32%

Improvement in therapeutic communication

45%

Improvement in violence prevention & de-escalation

See the evidence

Build · embed · measure

The build

Two scenarios, five modules, one curriculum.

CU Anschutz collaboratively developed bespoke voice-controlled scenarios with OMS – De-escalation and Motivational Interview – as part of a five-module program reaching 800+ nursing students a semester, with UC Health as clinical partner.

It wasn’t an off-the-shelf module dropped into a syllabus. The scenarios were built around the program’s own communication goals and mapped to its curriculum.

The principle

Co-built, not bolted on.

CU Anschutz didn’t take a library scenario off the shelf. They brought their own gaps – distress, de-escalation, incivility – and OMS built the content and competency mapping around what they actually needed, using the platform’s existing capability to move quickly. Relevance is what makes communication practice land.

What changes

Embed, measure, iterate.

Deployment is a sequence: Identify the gap, then build to it – adapting existing content or building new scenarios. Measure before deployment, deploy, measure after, and iterate.

95-99%

CU Anschutz – the outcomes

The CU Anschutz College of Nursing, in partnership with UC Health, developed a five-module program addressing nurse communication and workplace violence. OMS scenarios were built in collaboration with CU’s subject matter experts, reaching 800+ nursing students a semester. The program led to a reported 32% improvement in therapeutic communication skills and a 45% improvement in violence prevention and de-escalation skills.

See the CU Anschutz case →

Common questions

Answered, plainly.

CU Anschutz collaboratively developed bespoke scenarios with OMS, built around its own communication goals as part of a five-module program. The build is collaborative and mapped to your competencies.

CU Anschutz measured pre/post within the curriculum cycle. Because scenarios measure competency in real-time, the data accrues as learners complete them rather than waiting for a year-end survey.

Across 800+ learners, self-rated skills rose significantly pre to post (p<.001), with a reported 32% improvement in therapeutic communication skills and 45% in violence prevention and de-escalation. These are self-assessed gains in a well-designed study, rather that performance with real patients.

A clinical simulation platform whose AI-driven voice-interactive scenarios develop and measure communication, quality and safety competencies.

Build & measurement detail

See the build and the measurement detail.

We’ll send the CU Anschutz methodology and measurement approach – and map what it would take to do the same in your program.