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| navigate: home: magazine: fall 2000: article | |
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Expanding simulation training for medical staff By Leilyn Perri | ||||||
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A physician from Penn State’s College of Medicine believes a report by the Institute of Medicine about medical errors and patient safety may give renewed interest to the importance of simulation. “Simulators have a role in medical training, much like the aircraft industry has done with pilots,” Dr. W. Bosseau Murray said. “The process needs to become more widely used and focus on error prevention.” Murray is professor of anesthesia at Penn State and director of the Simulation Development and Cognitive Science Laboratory at The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. At the medical center, he and his team have a lifelike, computer-driven full human simulator that imitates the human body’s breathing, pulse and oxygenation as authentically as possible. Emergency medical technicians, medical students, residents and staff physicians all practice their skills on the mannequin. “We can simulate many medical scenarios and actually practice specific situations. Our research has shown that over time, skills will improve, with considerably less cost compared to practicing in an operating room, and no patient is at risk,” Murray said. In recent years, Murray has put together a crisis resource management training program for medical staff. An emergency situation is set up with many staff involved, just as if it were a real emergency. “Simulation techniques are becoming more widespread, but are still new in many places,” Murray said. “We videotape how the staff does in an emergency and then review it as a group. We know interaction and proper coordination of the situation improves with practice.” He presented his research on “The Future of Crisis Resource Management” at the annual Society for Technology in Anesthesia meeting in Orlando, Fla. “There are certain staff who should be trained together when simulating disaster or emergency situations. Nurses, surgeons and anesthesiologists should be trained jointly, as well as other logical combinations, such as internists, respiratory technicians and anesthesia personnel, who are all together during a cardiac arrest,” Murray said. He also said training needs to be greatly expanded. “For example, at a hospital with 12,000 employees, 6,000 of whom are clinical, at six participants per session, 1,000 sessions would be needed to train all employees. Obviously, we need situations where there are more sessions and on larger scales, so more people can be trained more quickly.” The Penn State researcher also believes crisis resource management can be expanded to rural areas. For instance, a simulator can be placed in a truck and brought to rural physicians for additional training. | |||||
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© 2002 Outreach Communications, Outreach & Cooperative Extension, The Pennsylvania State University phone: (814) 865-8108, fax: (814) 863-2765, e-mail: outreachnews@outreach.psu.edu |
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