The full-day course was instructed by experts in the field of each procedure from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Belvoir Hospital. The format followed a hands-on simulation structure.
“Research has shown that the use of simulation in healthcare creates a safe learning environment in which practitioners can enhance their individual skills before encountering patients –improving overall safety in care delivery,” said Army Maj. Megan Matters, a clinical nurse specialist in Belvoir Hospital’s Emergency Department. Matters designed the program with support from Sunny Jade Yauger, the hospital’s simulation program specialist.
“The overarching goal of this course is to support the command’s readiness,” said Matters. “Learners enhance their individual expertise reviewing skills that have been learned but not often utilized, ultimately translating to improvements in quality care and safety in the patient experience.”
Service members and civilian doctors across the military use simulation techniques to better prepare for high-risk scenarios, such as stabbings and gunshot wounds or breech births where babies’ positions threaten their well-being and that of the mother.
“A lot of what we do is teach early recognition of something and how to treat it,” said Army Col. Timothy Barron, chief of Emergency Medicine at Belvoir Hospital. “Luckily, we do not have to see severely injured soldiers in order to get the experience and muscle memory needed to provide expert care to our future patients. The method of on the job training and pattern recognition is supplemented beautifully with the use of simulation. Across the board, if we have an opportunity to train on a simulator before working with an actual patient, it is our responsibility to do that.”
Although Belvoir Hospital is not a Level-1 trauma facility, the hospital sees tens of thousands of patients in the Emergency Department each year. Most of the cases are “not the most critical, but are right in the middle of the spectrum,” Barron says, citing abdominal pain and chest pain as the most common reasons for ER visits.
He describes emergency departments as “diagnostic epicenters” in which medical staff see conditions and injuries of all kinds, on all ages of patients. This means medical staff must keep up with the best practices in clinical care or evidence-based medicine across many medical specialties.
“In the Emergency Department, you are able to access care for a cough or a fracture or an illness on any given day. However, emergency medicine providers are "life savers" in many circumstances. We never know when those circumstances will arise,” noted Barron. “These lifesaving procedures are absolutely critical to those moments and this training experience is invaluable to high level providers and their patients when that time comes.”
| Date Taken: | 12.28.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 12.28.2016 15:43 |
| Story ID: | 218836 |
| Location: | FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 166 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, When Seconds Count: Belvoir Hospital Trains for Battle (Wounds) During Simulation Course, by Alexandra Snyder, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
