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NYC Health + Hospitals Simulation Center Hosted Fifth Annual Simulation Symposium
Apr 29, 2022
NYC Health + Hospitals today announced that its Simulation Center hosted the fifth annual simulation symposium on Wednesday, April 27. This year’s event used simulation-based education and advanced learning to help improve patient outcomes in the area of health equity, particularly among patients from underserved and underrepresented communities. Many of the sessions centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition, the Simulation Center’s Maternal Mortality Reduction Program demonstrated how simulation can affect disparate health outcomes by recreating medical emergencies that are high risk for pregnant women of color. Komal Bajaj, MD, MS-HPEd and Chief Quality Officer of Jacobi/NCB and Ariel deRoche, MS from the Quality Office at Jacobi Medical Center talked about their study on diagnostic safety in postpartum hemorrhage. The event can be seen here.
Keynote speakers included Jennifer Arnold, MD, MSc, FAAP, Medical Director at Boston Children’s Hospital Simulator Program and star of TLC’s “The Little Couple”; Michelle Morse, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; Kelly Davis, MPH, Executive Director of New Voices of Reproductive Justice; and Desiree Díaz, PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, CNE, CHSE-A, ANEF, FAAN, Co-Founder and CEO of Kinshift.
“To keep every New Yorker safe and healthy, we must continue to invest in technology to train and hone the skills of our health care providers,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “NYC Health + Hospitals’ world class simulation-based education will improve patient safety, quality of care, and keep us on the cutting edge of medicine and health care.”
“Simulation offers the opportunity to build bridges with allies to better understand how to participate in the health equity conversation, create space to reflect and learn from our mistakes,” said NYC Health + Hospitals/Simulation Center Senior Assistant Vice President Michael Meguerdichian, MD, MPH-Ed. “It also provides an opportunity to design processes and spaces that better adapt to the needs of the communities we serve. Engaging those communities is really our next big step forward to impact how we change our culture.”
The NYC Health + Hospitals Simulation Center has been using experiential learning for the past 12 years and most recently has been creating courses that address health disparity and equity. Its Maternal Mortality Program emphasizes the impact of implicit bias on women of color and tries to reshape the approaches providers take when confronting high-risk obstetrical situations.
“Simulation is one of the most important ways we can prepare our birthing care teams (physicians, midwives, nurses) to be prepared for low probability, high acuity events. Sometimes we call these ‘never’ events. Our simulation teams have been excellent in preparing our obstetric providers to manage obstetric hemorrhage, cardiac events during pregnancy and severe, life-threatening hypertension in pregnancy,” said NYC Health + Hospitals Chief Women’s Health Officer Wendy Wilcox, MD, MPH, MBA, FACOG. “Our simulation leadership has been visionary to include concepts of equity, diversity and inclusion into simulation training, and this year’s conference did an excellent job of highlighting these issues to address racial disparities. Congratulations to Dr. Meguerdichian and the entire Maternal Mortality Reduction Program team for an enlightening and thought-provoking conference!”
The NYC Health + Hospitals Simulation Center program features a 10,000 square foot state-of-the-art training facility in the Bronx. The center features fully functional staged clinical environments like the ICU, Operating Rooms or Emergency Rooms to recreate traumas and life-threatening complications. Simulations help health care professionals practice procedures and engage in teamwork scenarios to hone the clinical, communication and collaborative skills they need to reduce medical errors and make patient safety a priority. The Center has satellite simulation hubs at a number of hospitals across the public system and its Correctional Health Services operation.
The simulation program uses the most advanced technology, including a family of high-fidelity mannequins with a range of skin tones, which adds surprising realism to the learner’s experience and underscores the health system’s priority of addressing and dismantling implicit bias in patient care. The health system’s simulation program is modeled after similar programs at Harvard University, the Mayo Clinic, and North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System.
In 2020, the NYC Health + Hospitals Simulation Center became the first program globally to receive accreditation by the International Society for Simulation in Healthcare (ISSH) in all five areas evaluated, including its Simulation Fellowship. These areas include assessment, research, teaching/education, systems integration, and the fellowship program.