By Robert Creenan
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal
LEWISTON, N,Y. — Mount St. Mary’s Hospital is positioning itself to serve as a site for emergency services training.
Four rooms in the Lewiston hospital’s former operating room area were converted into a SiM lab for training new EMS workers. It is the only hospital-based simulation option for such workers in the area.
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Three rooms have been set up so far, one for an outdoor park setting, one for a home setting with a dinner table and couch, and one for practicing the use of equipment to treat stem blood flow and getting patients oxygen, among other things. The fourth room, yet to be finished, is meant for simulating highly sensory environments so EMS workers do not get distracted.
Each room has the equipment they would use in a real-life situation, with EMS System Manager Emily James saying the possibilities for what to train for are endless.
“Other places have simulation labs, bits for nurses and physicians only,” James said. “This is the only place where they will get to train from dispatch through every piece of the call, all the way to the hospital handoff.”
Classes take a whole weekend, with two eight-hour days that are half lectures and half working in the various labs. Its first class was held on May 16-17 at the start of National EMS week, with 12 students, with more to be scheduled as the last parts of the labs are built out. They also plan on having community classes for CPR, Narcan, and stopping bleeding training.
Aside from a mannequin that can simulate a patient’s blood pressure, all of the other supplies and mannequins featured in the labs were either available on hand or were donated to them.
Prior to this, Mount St. Mary’s had to do outreach with other EMS agencies to use their facilities or at fire halls. They would also use a mobile simulation truck for training with a patient in a moving ambulance.
James called this kind of environment next-level training, since most of the standard training given does not have the practice mannequins they use featured in real-life scenarios. It is usually either a mannequin that does not do anything or a classmate who is perfectly healthy.
“A lot of it is very, ‘Okay, here’s your skill. Go do it, ” James said. “In this environment, you have to apply the skill you’re taught, just like you do in the field.”
The hospital’s four-person EMS liaison team is all Catholic Health associates who are in charge of training and outreach.
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