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Related Research Units

Newborn Medicine Research

Research Overview

Dr. Jennifer Arnold’s research centers on embedding simulation into everyday pediatric healthcare to advance safer care and better patient and family experiences. As Executive Director of Immersive Design Systems, she leads the creation of innovative, immersive training and clinical preparation tools that educate and empower clinicians, teams, and families to continuously improve patient care.

Her research portfolio also includes patient-centered simulation training, including preparing patients and families for upcoming surgeries, supporting caregiver skill-building for children with medical complexity transitioning home, and leveraging virtual and other immersive tools to understand how we can improve care as families prepare for new clinical spaces and care experiences.

Research Background

Dr. Arnold is a neonatologist and pediatrician who leads Immersive Design Systems, a healthcare simulation program, at Boston Children’s Hospital and collaborates across interdisciplinary clinical teams, hospital departments, to investigate family-centered programs that use simulation and immersive training to improve care quality, safety, and experience. She also collaborates with the Skeletal Health Center and disability health equity partners on simulation-focused education and systems improvement work. Dr. Arnold is co-PI on several disability health equity and medical education projects with Dr. Nora Renthal that incorporate simulation and experiential learning to reduce disability bias, strengthen communication, and improve equitable, family-centered care.

Selected Publications

Patient Safety and Systems Simulation Focus

Dr. Arnold’s early career focused in the development and application of healthcare simulation as a patient safety tool, creating novel applications to quality and safety: Simulation-based Clinical Rehearsals (SbCR), Simulation-based Clinical System tests (SbCSTs), and patient safety driven high frequency, low dose Simulation-based Training (SbT). The development of these tools (SbCSTs and SbCR) allows healthcare simulation to proactively evaluate patient care environments and processes to identify latent safety threats before they occur, and close the gap with mitigation strategies and sometimes SbT. Having done over 50 projects, SbCSTs have proven instrumental in proactively identifying and rectifying structural issues in healthcare systems.

  1. Dubé M, Hron JD, Biesbroek S, Chan-MacRae M, Shearer A, Landi R, Swenson M, Kats DJ, White D, Birmingham R, Coogle L, Arnold J. Human factors and systems simulation methods to optimize peri-operative EHR design and implementation. Advances in Simulation (London). 2025 Apr 23;10(1):23. doi:10.1186/s41077-025-00349-z. PMID: 40269997.
  2. Williams SA, Fitzpatrick K, Chandler NM, Arnold JL, Snyder CW. Financial and Safety Impact of Simulation-based Clinical Systems Testing on Pediatric Trauma Center Transitions. Pediatr Qual Saf. 2022 Aug 26;7(5):e578. doi: 10.1097/pq9.0000000000000578. PMID: 36032192; PMCID: PMC9416763
  3. Williams, S.A., Bludevich, B.M., Fitzpatrick, K., Lewis, S., Kuperman, K., Matamoros, J., Snyder, C.W., Danielson, P.D., Arnold, J. and Chandler, N.M., 2022. Evaluating the response of medical emergency teams to operating room code events in a children’s hospital. Journal of Surgical Simulation, 9(1), pp.112-119.
  4. Coleman N, Stone K, Doughty C, Arnold J, Dalpiaz A, Younker S, Lindley C, Pina J, Hebbar K. Simulation-based Clinical Systems Testing for Healthcare Spaces: from intake through implementation. Adv Simulation, Aug 2, 4:19,2019 DOI: 10.1186/s41077-019-0108-7. PMID: 31388455
  5. Coleman N, Stone K, Arnold J, Doughty C, Reid J, Hebbar KB. Prevent Safety Threats: Integration of Simulation and FMEA for Safety Threat Identification in New Construction. Pediatric Quality and Safety. PQS-D-19-00048
  6. Arnold J, Cashin M, Olutoye OO. Simulation-Based Clinical Rehearsals as a Method for Improving Patient Safety. JAMA Surg. Published online October 17, 2018. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2018.3526

Patient-Centered Simulation Focus

Dr. Arnold has focused much of her research in the application of simulation as a tool to enhance patient and family centered care. She has shaped the emerging field of Patient-Centered Simulation, with landmark publications on simulation training for families and conceptual frameworks for researchers.

  1. Arnold J, Diaz MC. Simulation-based Education for Parents and Home Caregivers. Robins B. Soghier L. AAP Neonatal Simulation: A Practical Guidebook. American Academy of Pediatrics. April 2021.pp.147-159.
  2. Diaz MCG, Arnold JL. Advocating for Your Patients and Families: Simulation as an Educational Tool for Home Caregivers of Children with Chronic Conditions. Pediatr Ann. 2021 Jan 1;50(1):e39-e43. doi: 10.3928/19382359-20201215-01. PMID: 33450038.
  3. Parmekar S, McMullen L, Washington C, Arnold J. Role of Simulation in preparation for the care of conjoined twins-prenatal preparation to separation. Semin Perinatol. 2018 Oct;42(6):329-339. doi: 10.1053/j.semperi.2018.07.011. Epub 2018 Jul 26. Review. PMID: 30144953
  4. Arnold JL, McKenzie FRD, Miller JL, Mancini ME. The Many Faces of Patient-Centered Simulation: Implications for Researchers. Simul Healthc. 2018; June; 13 (3S Suppl 1): S51-S55. doi: 10.1097/SIH.0000000000000312. PMID: 29771815
  5. Arnold J, Diaz MC. Simulation Training for Families and Caregivers in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Semin Perinatol. 2016 Oct 31. pii: S0146-0005(16)30069-6. doi: 10.1053/j.semperi.2016.08.007. Review. PMID: 27810116

Simulation-based Training Focus

As a foundational tool, much of Dr. Arnold’s work focuses is centered on the use of medical simulation to advance medical education and innovation, both within and outside of her field of neonatology.

  1. Schenone CV, Musi S, Demehri FR, Northam WT, Arnold J, Shamshirsaz AA, Krispin E. Innovative Simulation Model for Enhancing Training in Fetoscopic Spina Bifida Repair. Prenatal Diagnosis. 2025 Dec 5. doi:10.1002/pd.70038. PMID: 41351222.
  2. Arnold J, Vijayakumar N, Levy P. Advanced imaging and modeling in neonatal simulation. Semin Perinatol. 2023 Nov;47(7):151825. doi: 10.1016/j.semperi.2023.151825. Epub 2023 Sep 21. PMID: 37940437.

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