“Crash testers”: Preparing our health-care teams for real-life emergencies
From left to right: Meet “crash testers” Dr. Glenn Posner, Dr. Doran Drew and Jennifer Dale-Tam, RN. Oh, and the bedridden fellow they’re gathered around? That’s Fred, another proud member of the team.
Would you get into a car that hadn’t been crash tested?
“If you were in the Intensive Care Unit and needed a central line put into your neck, how would you like to know that your doctor had never performed or practiced it before?” asks Dr. Glenn Posner, Director of The Ottawa Hospital’s Simulation Patient Safety Program and the University of Ottawa Skills and Simulation Centre.
Simulation training involves recreating real health-care scenarios in a controlled environment, allowing teams to practice their skills. Just like car crash tests use dummies, medical simulations use manikins to stand in for patients.
Discover how the program enhances patient care and safety in this Q&A with Dr. Posner, Lead Medical Educator Dr. Doran Drew and Nursing Lead, Simulation Educator Jennifer Dale-Tam, RN.
What is the Simulation Patient Safety Program?
Dr. Posner: “Since launching in 2014, the Simulation Patient Safety Program has brought simulation training beyond the four walls of the Skills and Simulation Centre — and into the hospital and other clinical settings, where health-care teams are familiar with the space and the equipment. What makes our program so unique is that it’s hospital-wide and not just for specific departments, so you’ll find us running simulations just about everywhere, from the emergency departments to satellite sites.”
What types of scenarios do teams simulate?
Jennifer: “We can simulate just about anything! One of the most common scenarios we do is cardiac arrest, which is our bread and butter, but we run many other scenarios as well, including deteriorating patients, such as those with severe infections or who are not breathing well.”
How does the program improve patient safety?
Dr. Drew: “The first way is finding latent safety threats, which are issues in the care environment that haven’t caused any problems yet but could under the wrong circumstances. These issues could be as simple as a call bell that doesn’t work or something more critical, like a faulty piece of equipment for a procedure. The second way, which is a huge benefit of this program, is that it allows teams to train and work together in the clinical environment. They get the chance to practice together in a lower-stakes setting so that when they are taking care of a real patient in a real situation, they can perform to the fullest. Just like high-performance athletes, health-care workers need to practice together.”
What have been some of the program’s biggest successes over the years?
Jennifer: “There are a lot of them, but here are two big ones: First, a few months before the Westboro bus crash happened in 2019, Dr. Posner’s team had supported a Code Orange (mass casualty) simulation with the Emergency Department, which helped prepare the team for the influx of patients they received after the crash. Second, during the early days of the pandemic, our team was all over the hospital running simulations in various spaces to help develop protocols for COVID-19 because the virus was so unknown back then.”
Could you give us a glimpse of what the future looks like for the program?
Dr. Drew: “We’re very excited about the future. We will expand the number of scenarios we simulate and expand our training activities into more of the hospital’s satellite sites. We also plan to ‘crash test’ the health-care spaces at The Ottawa Hospital’s new campus. This is relatively new with health-care spaces, but we plan to run through various scenarios in the new hospital’s rooms, operating theatres, emergency bays and more to make sure they’ll be successful in serving our patients.”
The Skills and Simulation Centre is home to many more “hands on” training programs that enhance patient safety and quality of care. Visit the Centre’s website for a deep dive — and even a virtual tour.