The Northern Clinical Simulation program uses life-sized, anatomically correct mannequins, known as “simulators,” to provide realistic training for health care professionals. The simulators, which can breathe, speak, and bleed, provide practice in dealing with births, hemorrhages, broken limbs, heart attacks, and more. This lets health care professionals get hands-on experience while developing new skills, with zero risk to patients.
The Northern Clinical Simulation (NCS) team supports all education activities across Northern Health for all types of health care professionals, helping to enhance their skills and efficiency to improve patient outcomes. Recently, the team upgraded their monitor/defibrillator equipment to help them deliver all cardiac-related essential education.
The Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation has been a crucial partner in helping the NCS team upgrade high-performance equipment, ensuring that the simulation experience closely mirrors real-life situations on patient wards. With the help of the Spirit of the North and their generous donors, the team purchased LIFEPAK 15 equipment last year. This has made a huge impact on how we deliver advanced cardiovascular life support and pediatric advanced life support across Northern communities.
LIFEPAK 15 monitor/defibrillator is an update to the industry’s most widely used automated external defibrillator (AED). According to the vendor, it represents “the new standard in emergency care for advanced life support teams.” By using LIFEPAK 15 units to train health care staff, we can enhance patient outcomes through improved quality and efficiency.
Before adopting the new units, the NCS team was using LIFEPAK 12 equipment to train staff. However, this older equipment was outdated and no longer aligned with current medical practice, creating a huge challenge in trying to deliver high-quality education. To bridge that learning gap, nurse educators sometimes had to bring LIFEPAK 15 units in from the floor to use for training, which could potentially affect patient care. The Spirit of the North recognized this gap and helped the NCS team raise $40,000 to buy the more modern equipment.
I would like to extend huge gratitude towards the Spirit of the North and their donors for helping us continue to deliver quality education across all Northern communities and improve patient outcomes!
Learn more about the Northern Clinical Simulation Program.
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