Dr. Scot Mountain with the patient simulator, SimMan 3G at Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital.
A perfect storm for patient simulation is generating new education and training opportunities at Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital (KBRH) in Trail. As the acute care facility for Interior Health (IH) in the West Kootenay and Boundary region, the hospital supports a rural population of approximately 75,000 people.
KBRH also serves as a primary learning environment for students with the Southern Medical Program (SMP) and resident physicians with UBC’s Kootenay Boundary family practice site.
Dr. Scot Mountain, Director of the Intensive Care Unit, is one of the local physicians working closely with IH to develop a dedicated patient simulation centre for health professionals and learners.
“As a rural hospital with full-time teaching obligations, we need to be at the top of our game to proficiently care for critically-ill patients,” says Mountain, Clinical Associate Professor with the SMP. “Having our own simulation centre is a real step forward in terms of advancing medical education and patient care in the region.”
For the past few years, Trail has been a frequent stop for IH’s Rural Mobile Simulation Program facilitating sessions with healthcare staff to practice emergency or trauma room scenarios in a safe learning environment. With the recent push for ongoing access to patient simulation, the mobile program’s main high-fidelity patient simulation, SimMan 3G, is now stationed at the hospital when not in use at other rural sites.
More than $100,000 has been raised through a joint venture with IH and the region’s hospital foundations and physician groups to purchase additional simulation equipment. Existing space within the hospital will be renovated to create a new dedicated training space and to house all of the new equipment.
“We are working closely with the hospital administration and UBC to meet the training needs of the staff and learners and support interdisciplinary training opportunities across our healthcare teams,” says Roger Parsonage, Director, Strategic Initiatives, IH.
IH has provided funding for a simulation coordinator that will support training requests and promote the resource throughout the region. Dr. Mountain also recently completed the Boston based Comprehensive Instructor Workshop taught by faculty from Harvard Medical School, MIT, and Mater Hospital, Brisbane, with the help of scholarship funding from the Doctors of BC.