Camrose OR staff to train on high-tech patient simulator
November 8, 2010
CAMROSE – A powerful learning tool for health care providers is coming to a Camrose operating room Saturday as part of an Alberta Health Services (AHS) outreach program.
Operating room staff at Covenant Health St. Mary's Hospital will practise their skills while dealing with a wide array of medical scenarios during a five-hour training session with a human patient simulator. The computer-controlled mannequin breathes, blinks, talks, and has a pulse and vital signs.
Last year, AHS established eSIM (educate, Simulate, Innovate, Motivate), the only province-wide simulation program in Canada, with dedicated simulation facilities in Edmonton and Calgary. An eSIM outreach team leads simulation training sessions at hospitals, clinics and urgent care centres across the province in clinical areas such as critical, emergency, renal, operating room and post-anesthesia care.
This is the first simulation training session held at St. Mary’s Hospital.
"The human patient simulator will give Camrose health care providers an opportunity to respond in real time to medical scenarios – some complex and uncommon – in a controlled and safe environment," says Marlene Donahue, Director of Operations and Education with eSIM.
"Participants will get to talk with their 'patient,' gather information, work as a team, perform physical examinations and procedures and learn from the experience. Typically, health care providers quickly forget these scenarios are simulated and they'll act and react as if they are real. The simulator looks like a real patient and the setting is as real as possible."
Training sessions are held in the participants' actual working environment, using their own equipment, in order to identify potential problems and challenges.
"Health care providers would rather have problems during safe simulation scenarios than have them happen in real life," says Sue Barnes, simulation consultant with eSIM who will be overseeing the training in Camrose. "Simulation has the potential to improve the quality and safety of care for each of the thousands of patients we care for."
Wendy Mueller, nurse manager of the operating room at St. Mary's Hospital, welcomes the opportunity to train with the eSIM outreach team.
"This is an opportunity for our nursing and medical staff to practise their skills and test their knowledge of emergency situations that can occur in the operating room," says Mueller.
"It is extremely advantageous to have the education brought to the community."
Alberta Health Services is the provincial health authority responsible for planning and delivering health supports and services for more than 3.7 million adults and children living in Alberta. Its mission is to provide a patient-focused, quality health system that is accessible and sustainable for all Albertans.
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