The ANW Center for Clinical Simualtion
In early 2009, the new Abbott Northwestern Center for Clinical Simulation was completed. The new center was founded by the internal medicine residency program, and provides high-fidelity simulation in replica ER and ICU rooms for multi-disciplinary training of code situations, emergency management, and high-risk/low-frequency scenarios. The center's AV system captures scenarios, and facilitates video debriefing following the simulation. Laerdal's new SimMan 3G is the simulation "centerpiece" of the center. Residents are the core training group utilizing the simulation center, and the center is lead by the internal medicine residency faculty with help from faculty in the departments of critical care, emergency medicine and nursing education. It allows for multi-disciplinary training and interaction between different members of the healthcare team including nursing, pharmacy, physicians, anesthesia, etc., a skill that is critical to an efficient and safe healthcare team. Watch an overview of the center below.
The Center for Clinical Simulation's procedure lab allows Abbott Northwestern Hospital's faculty and residents to apply state-of-the-art simulation to learning the practice of invasive procedures in a risk-free environment with the ultimate goal being benefit to our patients. Simulation training is an integral part of the procedure rotation during your first year of residency. This one-on-one rotation was started in response to the national trend for an increasing role of using high-fidelity "ultrasound-real" patient simulation to foster experiential procedure training in a safe environment, and to increase the volume and quality of procedures our internal medicine residents perform. The center has ultrasound-real thoracentesis, central line, and arterial line simulators. In addition, there is a lumbar puncture simulator, IV simulators, shoulder injection simulator, and knee injection/arthrocentesis simulator. There is also a dedicated ultrasound machine used for procedure and ultrasound training of the residents.
The ANW iPhone Project and ANW toolset
In 2000, the ANW residency program began building an extensive collection of our own clinical tools. These tools include a large number of unique calculators and clinical decision support aids that were run directly off our handheld iPAQ computers until 2009 when the toolset was converted to a web-based toolset. The toolset is now accessed via a variety of interfaces including smartphones, wireless mobile browsers, hospital computers, etc.
The Abbott Northwestern Internal Medicine Residency Program continues to innovate in educational technology for residents. Recently, the program has transitioned away from residents and faculty carrying multiple electronic devices (pagers, iPAQs, cell phones) with the introduction of the ANW iPhone Program in 2009. The residency program supplements the cost of an iPhone for its residents and faculty. This phone acts as the physician's pager, cell phone, and an "always-connected" interface to the ANW web-based toolset, as well as multiple other online references (UpToDate, DiagnosisPro, Epocrates) via WiFi signal in the hospital and cellular 3G signal outside of the hospital.
The phone works as a text pager receiving all incoming pages from nurses in text format. It also functions as a physician-to-physician communication device via text messaging software. Most physicians will use this phone as both a personal and work phone. The paging interface for nursing staff only shows physican names, rather than phone numbers and iPhone functions allow for the ability to easily separate work from home. This program facilitates the use of a single "convergence device" in the iPhone to meet all of your clinical and personal needs in and out of the hospital.
Computerized Medical Record
The Allina Health System has one of the most extensive and advanced computerized medical record systems in the country (Epic Systems, Madison, WI). All 11 hospitals and over 60 clinics use the same medical record which includes all patient information, clinical documentation, and orders. This system began implementation in 2004 and is now fully deployed and mature. Our computerized medical record was the only recipient of the 2007 Davies Award from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society signifying "one of the most fully integrated, comprehensive electronic medical record systems in the nation."
Many aspects of patient care as well as physician efficiency have improved with this system. Residents have remote access to the system from any location. In addition, all imaging is online and available from any location as well.
Computerized White-Board Technology
Promethean ActivStudio computerized white board technology is used during attending rounds and most of the other regular resident conferences. This allows for multimedia conferences and adds the ability to use our audience feedback system. This has improved our conferences tremendously and allows for a dynamic interaction between the presenter and residents that improves learning. See more information in our curriculum and inpatient sections of the site.
