MALVERN, Pa., May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Paul Barach, director of the new Center for Patient Safety at the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Hospital, is a big fan of human patient simulators. These computer-wired mannequins show life-like medical responses to actions taken by medical students, allowing them to practice procedures to get a “feel” for what it’s like to interact with a living human body.
Now though, Dr. Barach is taking simulation a step further - creating full simulation rooms that mimic the chaos of real life as closely as possible. Rather than a controlled classroom situation, students experience what it’s like to treat a simulator “patient” with support staff running in and out, background noises and screams from other patients, and live equipment, drugs and medical tools. By introducing “life challenges” into training, Barach hopes to educate students how to treat patients safely and accurately in a sometimes chaotic reality.
To help accomplish this, Barach called upon EMS, the industry leader in clinical instruction and assessment technology.
“We needed a system that integrated with both a Standardized Patient (SP) learning model and a Simulator model. There is no system in place at present,” says Barach. “We also wanted someone who could provide the programming expertise to customize the software application to meet our particular needs of remediation, feedback and continuous performance review of candidates. And we needed digital a/v recording with multiple synchronized camera views that can integrate with candidate performance record for easy access. Again, not an easy thing to do.
“That’s why we went with EMS,” continues Barach. “Anurag [EMS president Anurag Singh] and his team have the best technical expertise in this field. And they demonstrated it yet again with our design and installation.”
EMS created custom software that integrated both the SP and Simulation learning models into a single user interface allowing one person to control both environments. EMS also customized the digital a/v recording and processing to provide the many camera angles each environment required so instructors could view the simulation from a variety of angles and get the full picture of what was happening.
EMS also used a web-access data storage platform for the multi-indexed a/v recordings, allowing them to be viewed from any computer with Internet access. This means faculty can review video any time they want and meet with students at any time or place to discuss their performance in the simulation.
“EMS has helped make it possible for us to do the job we believe in. We’re on our way to training physicians who are able not only to provide excellent medical care, but to do so under a variety of circumstances, including extremes that we hope they won’t ever have to deal with,” concludes Dr. Barach.
University of Miami Center for Patient Safety
The University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital Center for Patient Safety seeks to stimulate the growth of patient safety knowledge by conducting scientific and clinical investigations in collaboration with health care professionals and non-medical experts, and by designing innovative health care curricula based on human factors, team training and simulation. Contact them at 305-585-8364 or http://umdas.med.miami.edu/MPSC/index.html.
Enterprise Messaging Services, Inc. (EMS)
EMS software and digital a/v systems provide the seamless interface instructors and students need as they reap the huge benefits of honing their skills in the realistic scenarios that simulation technology affords. EMS helps you create the optimal instruction, feedback, and testing environment for your students. Contact EMS at 877-EMS-5050 or http://www.emessages.com/.
Enterprise Messaging Services, Inc.
CONTACT: Dave Palmer of Enterprise Messaging Services, +1-877-EMS-5050,dave.palmer@emessages.com
Web site: http://www.emessages.com/