The problem
Three main problematic areas have been identified in critical healthcare:
- Patient safety
- All medical practice involves risks and the possibility of mistakes. Human factors are responsible for 70 to 80% of mistakes made in health, according to international medical literature.
- Team training and practice
- In addition to individual competence, critical healthcare relies heavily on the opportune action of health teams whose members have no continuous training scheme and do not train together in clinical drills and procedures or non-technical capacities.
- Experience in patients and rare and complex events
- It is unethical to practise on patients which means experience cannot be gained of rare and complex events generally linked to a significant increase in morbidity and mortality.
The idea
And education and research centre was conceived which would combine the best medical and educational technologies available with good health practices through medical simulation – thereby creating the first comprehensive biomedical simulation unit in a public and university hospital in Portugal.
The project
It took about 18 months (from June 2007) to develop the project initiated by the HUC’s Anaesthesiology Department. The project is based on 5 basic principles:
- A centre designed for students, professionals and health teams, with special emphasis on critical healthcare, for exclusively educational and scientific research purposes.
- A multidisciplinary centre of national scope that congregates training and research activities involving medical simulation in various areas of healthcare.
- A centre that provides individuals and teams with skills and competences, with special emphasis on the application of good practices and improved technologies in healthcare, particularly the context of medical emergencies.
- A centre based on ethical experimentation without risk to patients and aiming to foster greater confidence in and safety for patients in terms of practical aid.
- A centre open to society – born of society and meant for society; one that is innovative and in the forefront educationally, capable of raising the standard of aid and the outcome for patients and generating social value for the community.
- A medical team led the entire process (training, education, administration, economics/finance and organization) throughout this 18-month period, in their own time. The Centre currently has 12 instructors in medical and clinical simulation accredited by European and American bodies; it has revamped facilities, acquired the nuclear equipment needed and held the first course on 22 November 2008, with a first rate result.
