Another innovative ‘Big Idea’ 2021 is becoming a reality, and will change the way we train together.

Elise Sutton, Resuscitation and Clinical Deterioration Coordinator, said it’s all about training as a multi-disciplinary team on basic and advanced life support.

“Often, when we train staff, we train them in silos – medical train together, nursing together and similar. Or we train according to skill level,” she explains.

While the usual training sessions are for separate disciplines, practice and day to day work is actually different – as allied health, nursing, medical, basic and advanced life support all work together with a patient. Research has also shown that when staff train together, they work better as a team.

The Simulating Together for Safety idea is based on Elise’s experience with in-situ simulations and other resuscitation training.

“I’ve realised how good it is to work and practise as a team. Overcoming barriers through debrief has been beneficial to teams, as it also empowers everyone to have a voice. All of that has inspired me to pitch an idea and come up with multi-disciplinary study days focusing on team training,” she explains.

“This study day is about bringing teams together through simulation – it will be run in the Simulation Center at NCHER. We will film the team at the start, before any training, then the team will go into skills stations, and a few simulation practises, with the final simulation also recorded.”

At the end of the simulation, an external person will review the recordings of both sessions, not knowing which one is the first or last, with the aim to show the progression within the team and overall improvement.

The Simulating Together for Safety idea was pitched during the 2021 Big Idea call out, and due to its face-to-face delivery, it had to be temporarily put on hold. However, with the eased restrictions, Elise is looking forward to the first training day in May.

“While we waited to resume face-to-face sessions, we gained ethics approval to record and review the sessions so we can put it into a research paper to show the progression of the team between the first and the last session. We’ve also been successful in obtaining a Clinical Nurse Educator position at 0.2 EFT, and we are in the process of advertising and recruiting,” she explains.

“People are very eager to come back to training together in person.”

Elise encourages staff to come to the first simulation session.

“There will be several simulations in one study day and we need 12 candidates to run the session. Keep an eye out for the Clinical Nurse Educator role and the study day – both will be advertised soon. If you are interested, get your registration in. The registration forms will be put on the Education Intranet page or on the Clinical Deterioration and Resuscitation learning hub, hoping to run the first session in May,” she adds.

Elise is planning for these simulations to become part of ongoing staff training.

Do you have a ‘Big Idea’ you would like to turn into reality? Submissions for ‘Big Idea’ 2022 are open! We encourage all staff to submit their ideas via Ideascale. ‘Big Idea’ 2022 submission deadline has been extended and will now close on Sunday, 27 March.