We are all familiar with the saying “practice makes perfect". To make sure that professionals have all the necessary skills at the time of any crisis, simulated practice is crucial in order to deliver perfect care. At the Centre for Innovation in Medical Education, CIME, Aga Khan university has the perfect environments and skills to simulate the contexts of any crisis situation to help develop expertise in its clinicians.
The global outbreak of COVID-19 has led to the need of for many more trained professionals to help care for the rising number of infected patients. To assist, CIME partnered with the University Hospital's internal medicine and infection control teams to prepare frontline staff to deal with coronavirus affected patients through simulation-based education and practice.
Two types of workshops were organised: COVID-19 diagnostic testing via nasopharyngeal, nose, and oropharyngeal, throat, swabbing; and managing Code Blue situations in a COVID-19 infected patient.
The COVID-19 testing technique isn't difficult but like any new skill, it needs observation and feedback to ensure competence in those who have never before been expected to do such a test. The learners practiced this technique on low-fidelity task training simulators.
In the Code Blue simulation workshop, the patient care simulator, SimMan 3G, simulated a COVID-19 infected patient in cardiac arrest. The learners were briefed and reminded of the additional personal safety considerations that are necessary to care for such patients. They also practiced donning personal protective equipment under similar time constraints to real world scenarios.
The feedback from participants was very positive as the workshops answered queries and removed any doubts about procedures while the simulation-based exercises provided the opportunity to practice and be better prepared for reality.
“These initiatives will help our hospital frontline staff become well versed with these procedures and allow us to improve our processes to make our patients, faculty and staff safer during this unprecedented crisis," Professor Charles Docherty, director of CIME said.
We are all familiar with the saying “practice makes perfect". To make sure that professionals have all the necessary skills at the time of any crisis, simulated practice is crucial in order to deliver perfect care. At the Centre for Innovation in Medical Education, CIME, Aga Khan university has the perfect environments and skills to simulate the contexts of any crisis situation to help develop expertise in its clinicians.
The global outbreak of COVID-19 has led to the need of for many more trained professionals to help care for the rising number of infected patients. To assist, CIME partnered with the University Hospital's internal medicine and infection control teams to prepare frontline staff to deal with coronavirus affected patients through simulation-based education and practice.
Two types of workshops were organised: COVID-19 diagnostic testing via nasopharyngeal, nose, and oropharyngeal, throat, swabbing; and managing Code Blue situations in a COVID-19 infected patient.
The COVID-19 testing technique isn't difficult but like any new skill, it needs observation and feedback to ensure competence in those who have never before been expected to do such a test. The learners practiced this technique on low-fidelity task training simulators.
In the Code Blue simulation workshop, the patient care simulator, SimMan 3G, simulated a COVID-19 infected patient in cardiac arrest. The learners were briefed and reminded of the additional personal safety considerations that are necessary to care for such patients. They also practiced donning personal protective equipment under similar time constraints to real world scenarios.
The feedback from participants was very positive as the workshops answered queries and removed any doubts about procedures while the simulation-based exercises provided the opportunity to practice and be better prepared for reality.
“These initiatives will help our hospital frontline staff become well versed with these procedures and allow us to improve our processes to make our patients, faculty and staff safer during this unprecedented crisis," Professor Charles Docherty, director of CIME said.
