Embracing the human factor

January 25, 2012

As part of its ongoing relationship with the Northern Skills Institute (NSI) at Hexham General Hospital, OR Networks, now part of Karl Storz Endoscopy UK, has equipped a suite of training rooms with equipment from its OR1 digital video teaching range.
The specially designed ORTV system includes cameras, feeds for endoscopic stacks, audio systems, microphones, and display systems, and serves a dual purpose: running two skills laboratories for hands-on laparoscopic training, and creating a simulated environment for ‘SimMan’, a 75kg ‘plastic patient’ .

Behind the NSI “vision” was laparoscopic surgeon, Liam F Horgan, a firm advocate of transmitting live surgery in teaching and training, whose goal was to connect the Institute to the operating theatres and seminar rooms of the three main Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust hospitals, with OR Networks and Storz providing the technology. The NSI’s simulated environment and skills laboratories are linked by one control room-operated OR Networks system. The “simulated environment room” can “become” a theatre suite, hospital ward, A&E room, or any other hospital area. Team-based scenarios, usually centred on clinical or human factors training, are recorded and played back to allow thorough debriefing. The facilities have ceiling-mounted cameras, connection points for endoscopes, a speaker system, and a large 50” flat panel screen. From the control room, the operator can route any signal from any training room to any seminar room, or back to another clinical training area. Up to four video channels can be recorded simultaneously, including the SimMan output, and synchronised to a single or mixed audio feed to allow debriefing with full video coverage of the preceding session. The control room can also bring in live feeds from operating theatres, and facilitate two-way audio discussions with the operating surgeon. An ORTV Lynx internet videophone can provide a telesurgical link for training and mentoring surgeons in the operating theatres at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, as part of the Trust’s ongoing laparoscopic surgical development programme in Tanzania.As part of the Trust’s Human Factors and Simulation Training (HuFaST) programme, staff in Northumbria can undertake day-long training with the emphasis on “human factors”, including participating in simulation exercises within the “virtual environment”. The £50,000 SimMan 3G “plastic patient”, operated wirelessly from the control room, is programmable to exhibit the symptoms of “almost any illness or injury”. The operator can inconspicuously run pre-programmed scenarios or tailor “events” to suit the teams, which observed by the HuFaST occupational psychologist, Rebecca Ellis, who then “debriefs” with them afterwards. Simulation can be watched live on OR Networks monitors in the other training rooms, but is also recorded.

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