Emergency medical service providers and nurses from the local area working with the University of Nebraska Medical Center Simulation in Motion Nebraska program (SIM-NE) recently conducted emergency medical training on January 17 from 2:00pm to 7:45pm at Box Butte General Hospital, which hosted the training. Approximately 40 people took part in the training.
The free training is conducted with a 44-foot-long, customized truck that provides a mobile, real-life training experience designed to enhance life-saving skills for those in rural areas. The trucks were launched in June to be stationed in Scottsbluff, Norfolk, Kearney and Lincoln with the actual training taking place in surrounding rural communities. The idea is about bringing training to those associated with rural emergency medical service agencies and rural critical access hospitals in their home location rather than having learners travel to larger cities for training. This allows the simulations to be team-based as learners train side-by-side with the people they normally work with during a response.
The customized trucks, funded by a $5.5 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, feature dual slide-out room extensions, a simulated emergency room and ambulance, as well as high-tech, computerized mannequins that talk, breathe, have heartbeats, and can react to medications and other actions of the learners.
Each mobile unit is outfitted with supplies to recreate a realistic environment for learners including supplies, pre-programmed computerized medical and trauma scenarios; monitors that display vital signs of patient simulators; audio and video recording/playback capabilities and mock drugs.
The grant will fund the program operation for three years with 100 percent funding in the first year, 66 percent funding in the second year and 33 percent funding in the third year. Private funding, partnerships, fee for services, and state and federal grants will be sought to sustain the project during and after the grant funding period ends in 2018.
Rural emergency medical service agencies and rural critical access hospitals can request training at www.unmc.edu/SIM-NE. For more information, email [email protected] or call 402 559-4863.
Box Butte General Hospital is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
About Nebraska Medicine and UNMC:
We are Nebraska Medicine and UNMC. Our mission is to lead the world in transforming lives to create a healthy future for all individuals and communities through premier educational programs, innovative research and extraordinary patient care.
About the Helmsley Charitable Trust:
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust aspires to improve lives by supporting exceptional efforts in the U.S. and around the world in health and select place-based initiatives. Since beginning active grantmaking in 2008, Helmsley has committed more than $1.8 billion for a wide range of charitable purposes. Helmsley’s Rural Healthcare Program funds innovative projects that use information technologies to connect rural patients to emergency medical care, bring the latest medical therapies to patients in remote areas, and provide state-of-the-art training for rural hospitals and EMS personnel. To date, this program has awarded more than $300 million to organizations and initiatives in the upper Midwest states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa, and Montana. For more information on Helmsley and its programs, visit helmsleytrust.org.