Improving Patient Safety with Simulation: Behavioral Health Emergencies, Appropriate Stretcher Use, Reducing Medication Errors and Pediatric Patients

In the December column, three of the 10 topics identified as patient and provider safety issues by the Center for Patient Safety's EMS Forward initiative1 were discussed and simple objectives with associated simulation activities were provided to help you understand how simulation can support patient safety. This month we continue the discussion by addressing four additional topics and explore how simulation can support addressing each, thus working to improve patient and provider safety and outcomes. Behavioral Health Although behavioral health emergencies serve as a small percentage of overall EMS patient interactions, emergency care providers influence patient outcomes; therefore, behavioral health simulation is important within EMS education.2 All EMS activations involve an emotional response (i.e., stress)—a response providers often become desensitized to, which is one reason that scene safety considerations should be paramount in all simulation scenarios. Behavioral emergencies often come with an unpredictable or heightened emotional response—and with it an increased safety risk. Many education programs allow learners to verbalize both body substance isolation (BSI) and scene safety at the beginning of a scenario without promoting an actual assessment for safety and assessment of the emotion at the scene. From an educational perspective, simulation activities can be designed to help students understand how to manage patients with behavioral health issues and shoul...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Trauma Patient Care Source Type: news