Medical Simulation Center
Simulation Reduces Medical Errors
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According to the MedTeams study, simulation
training reduced medical errors by 26.5%.
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The 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, "To Err is Human,"
brought national attention to medical error and specifically recommended
the use of simulation to support human factors training.
From airplanes to the bedside
Simulated patient care experience is an idea adapted
from airline industry flight simulators, which have been used in
pilot training for more than 50 years. Aviation has provided clear
evidence for the contribution of individual and team errors to the
occurrence of crashes and near misses. As a result of these studies,
Crew Resource Management (CRM) curriculum for team training, supported
by realistic flight simulators, is an annual mandatory training
standard in the aviation industry.
This pioneering work served as a model for the Anesthesia Crisis
Resource Management course, which was one of the first applications
of high fidelity medical simulation in medicine.
Medical simulation reduces errors at local hospitals
Locally, Rhode Island Hospital and its Hasbro Children's Hospital
have been funded participants in a U.S. Department of Defense project,
MedTeams, to transfer lessons learned in army aviation to medical
teams in the Andrew F. Anderson Emergency Center.
This multi-center military and civilian project demonstrated the
benefits of implementing a teamwork training curriculum in emergency
medicine:
- Clinical error rate decreased from 30.9% to 4.4% in the experimental
group.
- ED staff attitudes toward teamwork improved.
- Staff assessments of institutional support showed a significant
increase.
As with the aviation experience, sustaining improved performance
requires ongoing training, and this concept has contributed to the
development of high fidelity medical simulation at Rhode Island
Hospital.
With support from Rhode Island Hospital, the Champlin Foundation,
and the MedTeams project,
the Rhode Island Hospital Medical Simulation Center began operation
in May 2002.
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the Medical Simulation Center
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