$10 Million State Grant to Expand CESI’s Reach and Offering
By Karin Diamond
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edical professionals from all over the world come to Hartford Hospital’s Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation (CESI) to benefit from the hands-on experience it provides – an education missing from medical textbooks. Stephen Donahue, CESI program director, often quips:
You can’t learn that from a book when referencing the work done in the advanced training center. The importance of the virtual training offered at CESI is immeasurable. The program has grown from an operation with one teaching manikin to a program recognized as one of the most advanced medical training centers in the world. The State of Connecticut just awarded CESI a $10 million grant to further expand its offerings, acknowledging its importance as a medical resource and its place as an economic and jobs driver for the state. “The team reacted to the grant with shock and awe,” says Donahue. “I knew that this was going to be the future of teaching and patient safety, but I had no idea it would be as big as it has become.” The grant monies will be put toward an expanded 30,000-square-foot facility that will relocate CESI
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from its current home in the Education Resource Center to the adjacent Barney Building, a space that will provide for additional simulation areas and electronic training facilities at its estimated completion in 2014. “The government realizes that CESI’s expansion will increase the community’s economic development as we bring in more people to visit from around the country and the world,” says Dr. Steven Shichman, CESI medical director. “The recognition gives us a nice notoriety that further enhances the reputation of Hartford Hospital.” Those involved in the CESI program hosted a gathering on Oct. 9 to celebrate the grant award and the expansion it enables. For Donahue, the celebration was quite emotional as he witnessed the project he’s been working toward from the very inception come full circle. “We’ve come so far in the journey and now we’re going into a bigger territory,” he says. “There were mixed emotions of excitement and the realization that now that we’re getting bigger, so are the expectations. It was nice to see the people that support the program and know that we’re all in it together.” Donahue notes the unwavering support of administration and credits that backing with how far the center has come. “The state money is a wonderful boost, but without the support of administration, specifically Jeff Flaks and Elliot Joseph, we wouldn’t be where we are,” says Donahue. “They had the vision of what CESI could be and now they’re seeing that vision come true.”
CESI’s humble beginnings
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t wasn’t so long ago that the idea of simulation training was completely foreign. Hartford Hospital started its simulation education program in 2000 on a very small scale. “Back then nobody really understood what simulation education was nor what it meant and neither did we,” says Donahue, who was there during the program’s beginnings. “We found funding for one manikin and thought it was a great way to teach and make the staff safer and smarter.” That first manikin was purchased through the Department of Anesthesia by Dr. Thomas Mort, who had the foresight to see the direct benefits to patient safety and health care provider education that human patient simulation could offer. He championed its use at Hartford Hospital. Donahue recalls bringing that lone manikin on a “traveling show,” teaching classes wherever space could be found. For a length of time the project was operated with no budget. Donahue donated his time to educate himself and train others, in addition to working full-time at the hospital. The initiative’s first operational budget was just $3,000 per year. They worked out of a 900-squarefoot space on South Building 5 in what was known simply as the “Simulation Center.” In 2010, it expanded to its current 20,000-square-foot space in the ERC and became the Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation (CESI). “Now, 12 years after we started, we get this wonderful $10 million state grant to expand the spectacular facility we already have,” says Donahue. Those involved are in the planning phase, deciding how to make the most of the expansion. They are currently meeting to decide what additional technologies will be placed in the expanded space. The big focus will be on training and testing. “We are looking to expand into the bioscience research, working with more companies on product designs and developments,” says Donahue. “We’ve already done a tremendous job on patient safety and education and now want to enhance that with the innovation of medical device products.”
Steve Donahue:
The Man Behind the Manikin
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hen growing up in Hartford in the late 1970s, Stephen Donahue would ride his bike to Hartford Hospital nearly every day to spend time with his father during his lunch break from work in the hospital’s Engineering Department. Wearing his Guess jacket and bell-bottoms, toting a Yo-Yo, he was thrilled for the opportunity to hang out with his dad. Steve was too young to get a job, so his father suggested that he start volunteering at the hospital. He was scooped up by the Jefferson Street Thrift Shop, run by the hospital Auxiliary, which sold high-end goods like fur coats and jewelry to raise money for the hospital. He affectionately refers to the “six grandmothers” he worked with there as his inspiration to embark on a medical career as they encouraged him to pursue a job at the hospital when he became of age. With help from his thrift shop grandmothers, he decided to go into respiratory therapy, pursuing education at the University of Hartford.
He landed that Hartford Hospital job in 1982, and during his 30-year career here, has been at the cusp of some of the hospital’s most burgeoning initiatives. Most notably is his devotion to bringing the hospital’s simulation education program to the global forefront. In his early days as a respiratory therapist, Donahue encountered anesthesiologist Dr. Thomas Mort. The two built a friendship and a mutual respect for each other’s clinical ability. Mort learned about a manikin technology called “Sim Man” at a conference in the 1990s, and brought in the hospital’s first manikin a decade later. But no one knew how to run the manikin and there was no budget to pay anyone to learn. Mort had been impressed by Donahue’s talents, so he recruited him to help. Fully believing in the potential of this technology, Donahue practiced simulation education in the evenings as an unfunded position while he continued his full-time respiratory therapy job. (Continued...)
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