The Air Evac Lifeteam Clinical Education team took top honors in the 5th annual Critical Care Simulator Competition at the Air Medical Transport Conference Oct. 28 in Phoenix.
As members of the first U.S. team to win the honor, Clinical Educators Matt Hollis and Mike Smith were called upon to use their critical thinking and medical skills to address realistic critical trauma and illness scenarios using a computerized human simulator. More than eight teams from international air medical programs participated in the competition.
“We’re very proud of our team’s accomplishment in this competition, but more importantly, I believe this honor is demonstrative of the important role intensive medical training plays in our program,” said Air Evac Lifeteam Director of Clinical Care Services Robbie Covert. “In the rural communities in which we serve, quality pre-hospital care is so vital to our patients due to the distance these patients are from tertiary care centers.”
Air Evac Lifeteam, a rural provider of air medical services headquartered in West Plains, Mo., purchased seven human simulators to help its flight nurses and flight paramedics hone their emergency medicine skills. The simulators are used in training for new medical crewmembers, and as part of an ongoing medical training program in the field. Air Evac Lifeteam operates 64 bases in 11 centrally-located states.
The simulator used by Air Evac was designed to specifically address the unique challenge of emergency medical care. The lifelike simulator is medically authentic and allows educators to simulate a broad spectrum of symptoms, giving students the ability to practice a variety of lifesaving skills in any environment.
“As emergency medicine professionals, we have to be able to make instant assessments of our patients and determine the best path of medical care,” said Clinical Educator Mike Smith. “This simulator allows us to recreate lifelike scenarios so our crewmembers can improve their skills. The best possible response to any trauma must become second nature and the quality of training they receive with the simulator helps us improve the outcome of those responses.”
The simulator comes with prepackaged scenarios, including cardiac arrest, asthma, respiratory failure, congestive heart failure, and trauma injuries. Educators can also create their own scenarios, often based on real-life medical cases seen by crewmembers in the field. Students have the ability to insert breathing tubes, start IV’s, administer drugs, put in chest tubes, do CPR, and even defibrillate the patient to bring an irregular heart rate under control.
An educator at a computer workstation punches in information to correlate to the action taken by the students so the students can see the results of the actions they take. If they take the wrong action, the mannequin’s vital signs will start to plummet and they have to determine how to bring him back.
“The simulator is so lifelike, it can take an emotional toll on the students as they watch his vital signs fall and work to bring him back,” Educator Matt Hollis added. “That’s all part of the education process. We’d rather the students face those scenarios here in a controlled environment where they can work on improving their skills and be better prepared when they face the real thing in the field.
“We can challenge the students with a nightmare of symptoms - wheezing lungs, dilated pupils, falling blood pressure,” Hollis added. “When the students have to actually work through the problem on their own and find the solution, they learn better and they remember it the next time they face it in real life.”
“Simulators provide us with an extraordinary advantage over traditional classroom training,” Covert said. “Our goal is to get our students to use their critical thinking skills as a team, while under stress. They already know the right answers and already have the skills when they come to work for us, but this training gives them that extra edge and confidence they need to put those skills to work when time is of the essence.
“The real winners in all of this are the patients we will be taking care of in the future,” Covert said. “When our flight crews arrive on that scene, with the rotors still spinning and a patient gasping for breath, we know that patient will receive the most expert, highest quality care available.”
The competition was sponsored by Medical Education Technologies, Inc.(METI), STARS, Ontario Air Ambulance, PHI Air Medical and Omniflight Helicopters. Air Evac Lifeteam uses Emergency Care Simulators (tm) manufactured by METI in their medical training program.
Air Evac Lifeteam is a leading provider of air medical transportation to rural communities throughout the central United States. The membership-supported air ambulance company provides on-the-scene medical attention during the critical hour following an accident or medical emergency, rapid transport to medical facilities and critical care inter-facility transfers.
For more information about Air Evac Lifeteam, call 1-800-793-0010 or visit www.lifeteam.net.