Photo By Maj. Sarah Knowlton | 396th CSH Mayo Clinic read more read more
ROCHESTER, Minn. – We all practice our Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). We all have skills, but we need to come together to work as a team. This is what Soldiers of the 396th Combat Support Hospital out of Vancouver, Washington, experienced while training on team communication strategies at the Mayo Clinic Multidisciplinary Simulation Center in Rochester, Minnesota.
“Everything we are about, is patient safety,” said U.S. Army Col. Todd Gottschalk, an internal medicine physician with the 396th CSH. “We need to minimize the opportunity for mistakes.”
During a discussion between Gottschalk, and two other 396th CSH medical providers, Col. Sandra Wanek and Lt. Col. Martha Roellig, he shared a real world example of what happens when communication goes wrong.
“I had an incident when I was in Kosovo, on deployment, in 2015. You know…we go through these scenarios all the time of mass casualty exercises…everything happens so quickly. So when we actually had a mass casualty it wasn’t combat related. It was a car…that hit another car head on, right in front of our gates.
We got three to four casualties from that. And one of them was a head injury that was kind of severe. In Kosovo we were a small unit and didn’t have neurosurgery capability. The Germans, one of our NATO partners, did. Well, we went through the exercises, and since this person has a head injury they will go to the Germans. And so we just made that happen, but then the chopper came and got the patient, and took him to the Germans.
And no one had told the Germans.”
Gottschalk’s story illustrates how the communication technique, Close the Loop, was not utilized. Close the Loop is a technique taught from the manual, “Team Strategies & Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety,” that the U.S. military has trained medical teams on for over a decade.
From April 20-22, 2018, the 369th CSH came together at the state-of-the-art MMSC facilities to get realistic training and practice TeamSTEPPS concepts. The training was directed by the Medical Readiness Training Command with support from Mayo Clinic staff, the Regional Training Sites-Medical (RTS-MED) of Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, and other supporting U.S. Army Reserve training personnel.
“This is what we do, our mission is to train hospitals to do their mission,” said Col. Jerald Chester the Clinical Training Officer and Deputy Commander of MRTC. “MRTC conducts this training six times per fiscal year.”
The military medical staff are observed from a crow’s nest behind two-way mirrors. All activities in the training area are video recorded, and the footage is replayed during the unit’s after-action review for additional training.
“The training is communication based to increase patient safety and to save lives down the road,” said Master Sgt. Sean Whitehead, MRTC’s noncommissioned officer in charge.
The training wouldn’t be as effective if they didn’t have patients to practice on, or the additional materials provided by the Mayo Clinic and RTS-MED.
“Our part is to support with MC4 computers and network systems, and provide over the shoulder MC4 assistance as necessary or needed,” said Steve Garza, the Clinical Training Manager at RTS-Med. “Our second primary is to provide moulage, high fidelity mannequins, basic mannequins and support with Class VIII (medical material).”
Being able to use the MC4 (Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care computer system), mannequins, TeamSTEPPS concepts allows for the 396th CSH to improve as a team.
“Overnight we see progress,” said Chester. “It is really rewarding.”
The 396th CSH personnel are already professionals in their civilian fields and skilled in their military occupational specialties, but they don’t usually get the opportunity to train as a team during a battle assembly weekend.
“This is the best utilization of TeamSTEPPS, because it is scenario based not just a class or walking through a PowerPoint,” said Capt. Sarah Wright, a medical surgical nurse. “It gets your team on a better footing.”
Sometimes in organizations where the leadership is positional, like hospitals or the military, leaders expect their commands to be carried out without question. This is an issue if those receiving the message, miss part of the message, or have information that the leader hasn’t received yet.
The whole emphasis of this Mayo Clinic exercise is to avoid real world scenarios where patients are sent out the door with no one to receive them. The strategies, like Call-Out, Check Back, Handoff and Close the Loop, work and ensure that everyone gets the needed information. And most importantly, that the patient is not put in danger.
| Date Taken: | 04.21.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 05.14.2018 13:57 |
| Story ID: | 276941 |
| Location: | ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA, US |
| Web Views: | 763 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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