Image credit: Yorkshire Air Ambulance
Air Medical Services is a comprehensive term covering the use of air
transportation to move patients to and from healthcare facilities and accident scenes.
Personnel provide comprehensive prehospital and emergency and critical care to
all types of patients during aeromedical evacuation or rescue operations aboard
helicopter and propeller aircraft or jet aircraft.
AirMed&Rescue Magazine, Issue 116, May Edition, is out now with a must-read article
titled Using The Sixth Sense To Escape The Monotony, covering how Serious Games are changing medical education.
The authors are William Belk, whose professional interests include high-risk obstetrics, serious gaming, 3D printing, and all aspects of healthcare simulation. He serves as the Technical Chair for the AMTC (Aviation & Missile Technology Consortium) Sim Cup alongside an international team of flight clinicians and educators; and Jennifer Noce, a Critical Care Flight Paramedic and the Division Education Manager for Air Methods Corporation, an American privately owned helicopter operator whose air medical division provides emergency medical services to 70,000-100,000 patients every year.
The Air
Methods Approach
According to
the authors, Air Methods Corporation (AMC) has wholly redesigned its clinical education approach
to embrace emerging technology and educational concepts, focusing on
problem-solving and communication while caring for simulated patients using a
combination of high-fidelity human patient simulators and serious gaming
activities.
“In 2020, Air
Methods began working with California-based virtual reality developer SimX to create the first large-scale air medical virtual reality
(VR) training program. Air Methods and SimX are developing a library of
advanced clinical scenarios capable of having multiple players working together
to treat patients in the virtual environment.”
Image credit: AirMed&Rescue Magazine
VR allows
educators to address clinical trends anywhere in the country without the need
for travel. This is accomplished simply by allowing an educator to virtually
join a flight crew and run them through high-acuity cases without leaving their
home or office.
“Another new
development is the popularity of recreational escape rooms throughout the US.
These facilities use a series of clues to solve a mystery or escape a dire
threat, usually while racing against the clock. In recent years, escape rooms
have been adapted for use in clinical training, and Air Methods has brought
this fun and entertaining teaching style into the air medical industry. A team
of educators at Air Methods have developed an escape room that mixes clinical
knowledge, pop-culture references, and good old-fashioned sleuthing into an
interactive learning experience designed to better prepare clinicians to care
for critical pediatric patients. Each step of patient care, such as accessing
medications or locating lab values, requires the team to solve the previous
clues. Three groups are pitted against each other each day to see who can
figure out the patient’s condition and provide the most appropriate care in the
shortest amount of time.”
Read more at https://www.airmedandrescue.com/latest/long-read/changing-air-medical-education-games