SimDrug – A low cost way of enhancing the simulation experience: User Feedback Raynor N, Wright S, Tung P, Weerasinghe A, Robotham D Introduction Medication errors continue to pose a risk in health care settings, it is therefore surprising that little emphasis has been placed upon “medication simulation.” Life Support Courses often recreate the drug prescribing process verbally with candidates stating the drug of their choice. The actual act of drug administration is often omitted or performed with a few pre-labelled syringes thus omitting the standard of two person check. We proposed that such a casual approach to drug administration could lead to candidates being complacent and underestimating the dangers associated with drug administration. IS
Objectives Lego blocks were labelled with a drug name, unit, route and expiry dates. Candidates have to assemble the SimDrug correctly prior to its administration. We propose the use of SimDrug as a low cost and safe alternative in order to simulate drug prescription & administration.
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Methods Medical Students who underwent simulation teaching at Dewsbury & District Hospitals were asked to complete a structural feedback form following using the SimDrug system.
Results - 30 completed feedback forms were analysed (100% response rate) - 73% found it difficult to locate the correct drug - 80% felt their stress level increased when asked to identify the correct drug in a time critical situation. - 86% of candidates stated that without SimDrug their experience and the effectiveness of the teaching would be diminished.
Conclusions Simulation centres often spend in excess of £75000 on a high fidelity simulator, expensive cameras and purpose built facilities. The cost of £80 for a set of custom made SimDrug containing over 180 individual drugs seems negligible. While the SimDrug cannot simulate the action of opening packaging, splitting tablets or reconstituting intravenous medications, it can simulate the increased stress level of identifying the correct drug in an emergency situation as well as recreating the natural time delay between prescribing and administration. It also enforces the importance of adhering to correct medication administration in a safe environment.
Reference MHRA; Improving medication error incident reporting and learning; NHS Patient Safety Alert 20th March 2014
Contact Patrick Tung (Emergency Medicine Consultant) patrick.tung@midyorks.nhs.uk