What We Do
70% of mistakes in medicine are due to
human error – not lack of medical knowledge. The
Simulation Center
at Texas Children’s Hospital trains pediatric health care
professionals to react and respond to high-risk
pediatric and obstetric scenarios in
a life-like simulated environment so that risk to patients is
substantially lowered in real life situations.
What is simulation?
Simulation is a guided technique that recreates a clinical
environment and gives health care professionals exposure to
high-risk scenarios without putting actual patients at risk.
The simulation training experience includes:
- Simulation exercises on
high-fidelity mannequins that
mimic real emergencies to
facilitate team communication
skills and real-time responses
- Review of video-recorded
simulation
- Debriefing of learners to
review and discuss simulation
experience
Simulation Process
Drawing from the experiences of
expert staff
and a full scope of resources, the
Simulation Center has developed a
guided process to train and educate
health care professionals
through
clinical simulation and
debriefing.
Learners practice on high-fidelity mannequins that respond
physiologically to treatment, while actors play the role of patients
and families to help them develop communication skills in crisis.
Following simulation exercises,
debriefing sessions provide learners
with a chance to review their
performance on video, while evaluating
the effectiveness of their actions
during the simulation. Debriefing is one
of the most valuable components of
simulation.
Benefits of Simulation
Following the lead of the aviation industry, medical simulation
developed to give practice to learners who would otherwise not have
experience in difficult clinical situations. Since its start,
medical simulation has yielded a number of key benefits including:
- Improved cognitive, technical and behavioral skills among
caregivers
- Increased learner competence in assuming full patient care
responsibility
- Reduced overall training costs
- Controlled, safe training environment that results in
improved patient care
- Enhanced patient safety through human performance research
