PI: Dr. Dan Poenaru
Co-applicants: Dr. Fabio M. Botelho, PhD student, and Dr. Jason M. Harley
Project Description:
Although pediatric trauma is an epidemic and a severe disease worldwide, few research projects have proposed feasible solutions to combat this problem. One of these suggested solutions is improving professional education, which is challenging, especially in surgical training - as these providers need to acquire different skills. Education through simulation, typically using manikins, has been demonstrated to be a well-suited environment to develop both technical skills (such as chest tube insertion, intravenous lines) and non-technical skills (team communication, leadership, decision-making, situational awareness). Evidence has shown that professionals who have more non-technical skills are better leaders in health care. However, there are no studies that have formally explored how to teach these skills to members of a pediatric trauma team.
Our objective is to facilitate the successful acquisition of non-technical skills through a simulation-based program and its translation to improve clinical outcomes for injured children. Using the Non-technical Skills for Surgeons (NOTSS)—an assessment tool designed to score surgeons' non-technical skills—and systematic debriefing strategies, we plan to formally evaluate those skills through two different rounds of pediatric trauma simulated scenarios. After a first round of those scenarios, health professionals will be divided into an intervention and a control group. Non-technical skills are responsible for the majority of errors in critical care settings, and there are, to date, no studies offering a solution to teach these skills for pediatric trauma care providers. We hope that this study could fill this gap by fostering health care team leaders.
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