The innovative work of Royal Brompton Hospital’s SPRinT programme triumphed at the London Deanery’s annual ‘Quality Improvement and Innovation in Healthcare Education’ conference in Dec 2011.
In an award ceremony, the London Deanery, NHS London and the Education Commissioning System (ECS) recognised training interventions which were innovative and promoted patient safety at their trust.
Despite strong competition and a very high standard of nominations, the highly rated SPRinT programme from Royal Brompton Hospital won for the advancement of the SPRinT training to cardiothoracic inter-professional teams through the development of novel tools, including the patented open-chest Harley model and the open-chest ECMO model.
The SPRinT (Simulated Paediatric Resuscitation Team Training) programme uses the most advanced simulation baby mannequins to recreate life threatening events. The programme runs regular paediatric simulations throughout the hospital to improve multi-disciplinary team performance in time-critical situations. Crash trolleys, resuscitation equipment and real drugs are used to create scenarios that are as true to life as possible.
Accepting the award on behalf of the SPRinT team, Dr Margarita Burmester, Director of SPRinT, said:
“1 am delighted to receive this award from the London Deanery during such an important conference. It reflects the hard work that has been done by the SPRinT team in the last year, the collaborative ethos of the programme and the innovative work on patient safety that continues at the Trust.
“Royal Brompton’s dedicated paediatric department is a national specialist referral centre for children with heart and lung conditions. It is internationally renowned for its work in many areas and it is the largest national referral centre for children with heart rhythm problems. Achieving excellence in team performance at the frontline directly impacts on the safety of the critically ill children in our care.
“The SPRinT programme has been delighted to collaborate with Mr Olivier Ghez and Ms Iryna Atamanyuk to provide excellence in cardiothoracic simulation training” explained Dr Mary Lane, Associate Director of SPRinT at Royal Brompton Hospital.
“We have recently been successful in bidding for funding to develop an innovative adult open-chest model to promote patient safety, and hope to enable rapid responses to critically ill adults as well. Responding rapidly and efficiently to critically ill patients is part of our daily work.”
The conference included national speakers from NHS organisations and simulation and patient safety experts. As well as plenary speeches the event included workshops promoting educational excellence, innovation and best practice.