University of Iowa medical simulator stops in Mason City

 

 

MASON CITY — The University of Iowa’s “Simulation in Motion-Iowa” team is taking the journey of the RAGBRAI route this week to host simulated education sessions for first responders, EMTs, paramedics, nurses and physicians.

The university’s College of Nursing landed an $8 million grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust to purchase three semi-sized simulators to help Iowa’s rural first responders and community hospital staffs brush up on emergency medicine.

Senior program advisor Jacinda Bunch tells KGLO News they thought RAGBRAI was a good opportunity to make a trip across the state and introduce this new program.  “One of the things we’re doing is we’re working with EMS and rural hospital agencies so that we can simulate some either medical situations or traumas that could possibly  be experienced with RAGBRAI, such as a bike accident, heat exhaustion, things like that. It allows the providers to work through those scenarios, think about their protocols, and be a little more prepared for whatever might happen on that RAGBRAI route, although we hope that absolutely nothing happens.”

Bunch says the mobile unit allows emergency responders to stay closer to home when getting the training they need.   “We know that especially in rural Iowa you have a lot of volunteer services, you have smaller ambulance services as well, and even some of the larger ones, if you are going to pull people and bring them into Des Moines, Iowa City, Sioux City, Cedar Falls, wherever that is, you’re taking them out of their environment. You’re having to backfill those positions, you’re taking providers away from their local needs. This way we can take the truck and bring it to them, and instead of maybe having two people that get training that you send off, we can come and provide that education to everyone in that agency that’s available that day.”

Bunch says they’re excited to have the opportunity to be able to not only train emergency responders with this new tool but rural hospitals as well.  “We can take these simulators into the local hospital, we can put them in your ambulance, so you use all of your own equipment and you can work with your own staff and feel more comfortable and practice things like they are real.”

Bunch hopes the response to this first tour of the simulator shows it’s a great investment for the medical community.  “This is funded initially with a training grant, and so we’re looking for support within the community, and hopefully this is something that’s perceived as valuable and we can continue providing this service for many years into the future.”

The simulator is at the Mason City Fire Department today and will be in Charles City tomorrow.

The training that’s happening on the RAGBRAI route involves four simulated patients: an adult male, an adult female, a child and an infant involving medical scenarios that could possibly take place during the event. You can listen to Bunch describe the four different training scenarios via the audio player below.