In North Dakota, Stanley Ambulance Service looks to purchase pediatric simulator
Practice makes perfect—and when it’s hard to come by, that practice is especially valuable.
Stanley Ambulance Service, which serves Mountrail County in North Dakota, responds to between 500 and 600 calls a year, very few of which are for young children.
But the organization is hoping to enhance training for pediatric calls through the purchase of a Pediatric HAL S2225 simulator, which is designed to emulate a five-year-old patient.
“The value in the simulators is we can practice procedures that we might only see every once a year or once every couple of years. But these are procedures that can mean life or death,” explains Ken Rensch, Executive Director of the Stanley Ambulance Service.
“By utilizing these simulators, we can practice the procedures and maintain our skills so that when we do get that call, we still have the skills needed,” he adds.
The service provides training in initial education courses such as Emergency Medical Responder, Emergency Medical Technician, and Advanced Emergency Medical Technician.
“The simulator raises the bar for emergency medical care. My students in initial classes can be exposed to pediatric patients before even getting in the field for their first real EMS call,” says Joelle Muckle, a manager for Stanley Ambulance Service.
“New nurses are able to get a hands-on experience before actually seeing it in their ER. There's really nothing that you can use to replace that, other than real-life experience. That's why the simulators are so important to our training centers,” she adds.
Since its launch, Enbridge's Safe Community program has invested about US$20 million (more than C$26.1 million) in first responder organizations near our pipelines and facilities.
Ongoing tax revenue, local/regional economic stimulation, community investment, and workforce salary.
The simulators act like human patients and have pulses and the ability to blink, speak and react to their care providers. While the service currently has adult simulators, a pediatric simulator would help prepare for the less frequent, challenging pediatrics calls.
“Even for the most seasoned medical professionals, pediatric calls are usually the most intense. So by having this stimulator that can breathe, act and respond just like a five-year-old child, we’re able to practice those intense calls,” says Muckle.
Safety is a core value at Enbridge—the very foundation of our business. And as part of Enbridge’s Safe Community program—which awards grants for safety equipment, professional training or safety education programs to first response organizations—we recently contributed $2,500 toward to the purchase of the pediatric simulator.
Stanley Ambulance Service also partakes in the community’s SCRUBS camps, taking the simulators to schools to educate students on emergency medical services and spark interest in the field.
Currently, the organization transports its current simulators to provide in-house training for other ambulance services, hospitals and emergency medical staff in northwestern North Dakota.
(TOP PHOTO: The Pediatric HAL S2225 simulator.)
