Hyper-realistic and immersive surgical simulation training environment will improve team performance.

BACKGROUND: Surgical trauma care requires excellent multidisciplinary team skills and communication to ensure the highest patient survival rate. This study investigated the effects of Hyper-realistic immersive surgical team training to improve individual and team performance. A Hyper-realistic surgical training environment is defined as having a high degree of fidelity in the replication of battlefield conditions in a training environment, so participants willingly suspend disbelief that they become totally immersed and eventually stress inoculated in a way that can be measured physiologically. METHODS: Six multispecialty member US Navy Fleet Surgical/US Army Forward Surgical Teams (total n=99 evaluations) underwent a 6-day surgical training simulation using movie industry special effects and role players wearing the Human Worn Surgical Simulator (Cut Suit). The teams were immersed in trauma care scenarios requiring multiple complex interventions and decision making in a realistic, fast-paced, intensive combat trauma environment. RESULTS: Hyper-realistic immersive simulation training enhanced performance between multidisciplinary healthcare team members. Key efficacy quantitative measurements for the same simulation presented on day 1 compared with day 6 showed a reduction in resuscitation time from 24 minutes to 14 minutes and critical error decrease from 5 to 1. Written test scores improved an average of 21% (Medical Doctors 11%, Registered Nurses 25%, and Corpsman/Medics 26%). Longitudinal psychometric survey results showed statistically significant increases in unit readiness (17%), combat readiness (12%), leadership quality (7%), vertical cohesion (7%), unit cohesion (5%), and team communication (3%). An analysis of salivary cortisol and amylase physiologic biomarkers indicated an adaptive response to the realistic environment and a reduction in overall team stress during performance evaluations. CONCLUSIONS: Hyper-realistic immersive simulation training scenarios can be a basis for improved military and civilian trauma training. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III.

The next nine minutes: Lessons learned from the large-scale active shooter training prior to the STEM school shooting.

OBJECTIVE: As the incidence of active shooters increase, local emergency response has also changed. South Metro Fire Rescue coordinated a series of hyper-realistic active shooter simulation drills involving multiple agencies. METHODS: "The Next Nine Minutes" was one of the largest active shooter drills performed to date with 904 personnel that were trained in 18 mass casualty active shooter drills. Evaluation was from point of injury to and including care in the operating room (OR), and evaluation of real-time system logistics. RESULTS: A total of 126 patients in Cut Suits® received a total of 479 procedures such as needle decompressions, cricothyrotomies, tourniquets, wound packs, and chest tubes. Central to this exercise, law enforcement (LE) established a warm zone from the initial shooting. EMS was able to move into the facility, locate casualties, extract the first victim, move them to a casualty collection point (CCP), and transport them to safety within 12 minutes. CONCLUSIONS: Strengths and weaknesses were identified in prehospital and in-hospital care. These included what roles agencies play in a true event, specific timing in establishing areas such as the warm zone and CCP, transportation, and logistics at the accepting hospitals. Only after the barriers to success were identified and addressed did the timing of casualty movement drastically improve. Lessons learned from this training were ultimately used to save lives at the STEM School, Highlands Ranch, and Colorado Shooting. This in situ immersion training should be practiced as a whole system.

Abbreviated closure for remote damage control laparotomy in extreme environments: A randomized trial of sutures versus wound clamps comparing terrestrial and weightless conditions.

INTRODUCTION: Far-Forward Damage Control Laparotomies (DCLs) might provide direct-compression of visceral hemorrhage, however, suturing is a limiting factor, especially for non-physicians. We thus compared abbreviated skin closures comparing skin-suture (SS) versus wound-clamp (WC), on-board a research aircraft in weightlessness (0g) and normal gravity (1g). METHODS: Surgeons conducted DCLs on a surgical-simulator; onboard the hangered-aircraft (1g), or during parabolic flight (0g), randomized to either WC or SS. RESULTS: Ten surgeons participated. Two (40%) surgeons randomized to suture in 0g were incapacitated with motion-sickness, and none were able to close in either 1 or 0g. With WC, two completely closed in 1g as did three in 0g, despite having longer incisions (p = 0.016). Overall skin-closure with WC was significantly greater in both 1g (p = 0.016) and 0g (p = 0.008). CONCLUSIONS: WC was more effective in 1g and particularly 0g. Future studies should address the utility of abbreviated WC abdominal closure to facilitate potential Far-Forward DCL. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ID ISRCTN/77929274.

Damage control surgery in weightlessness: A comparative study of simulated torso hemorrhage control comparing terrestrial and weightless conditions.

BACKGROUND: Torso bleeding remains the most preventable cause of post-traumatic death worldwide. Remote damage control resuscitation (RDCR) endeavours to rescue the most catastrophically injured, but has not focused on prehospital surgical torso hemorrhage control (HC). We examined the logistics and metrics of intraperitoneal packing in weightlessness in Parabolic flight (0g) compared to terrestrial gravity (1g) as an extreme example of surgical RDCR. METHODS: A surgical simulator was customized with high-fidelity intraperitoneal anatomy, a "blood" pump and flowmeter. A standardized HC task was to explore the simulator, identify "bleeding" from a previously unknown liver injury perfused at 80 mm Hg, and pack to gain hemostasis. Ten surgeons performed RDCR laparotomies onboard a research aircraft, first in 1g followed by 0g. The standardized laparotomy was sectioned into 20-second segments to conduct and facilitate parabolic flight comparisons, with "blood" pumped only during these time segments. A maximum of 12 segments permitted for each laparotomy. RESULTS: All 10 surgeons successfully performed HC in both 1g and 0g. There was no difference in blood loss between 1g and 0g (p = 0.161) or during observation following HC (p = 0.944). Compared to 1g, identification of bleeding in 0g incurred less "blood" loss (p = 0.032). Overall surgeons rated their personal performance and relative difficulty of surgery in 0g as "harder" (median Likert, 2/5). However, conducting all phases of HC were rated equivalent between 1g and 0g (median Likert, 3/5), except for instrument control (rated slightly harder, 2.75/5). CONCLUSION: Performing laparotomies with packing of a simulated torso hemorrhage in a high-fidelity surgical simulator was feasible onboard a research aircraft in both normal and weightless conditions. Despite being subjectively "harder," most phases of operative intervention were rated equivalently, with no statistical difference in "blood" loss in weightlessness. Direct operative control of torso hemorrhage is theoretically possible in extreme environments if logistics are provided.

The marriage of surgical simulation and telementoring for damage-control surgical training of operational first responders: A pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Hemorrhage is the leading cause of preventable posttraumatic death. Many such deaths may be potentially salvageable with remote damage-control surgical interventions. As recent innovations in information technology enable remote specialist support to point-of-care providers, advanced interventions, such as remote damage-control surgery, may be possible in remote settings. METHODS: An anatomically realistic perfused surgical training mannequin with intrinsic fluid loss measurements (the "Cut Suit") was used to study perihepatic packing with massive liver hemorrhage. The primary outcome was loss of simulated blood (water) during six stages, namely, incision, retraction, direction, identification, packing, and postpacking. Six fully credentialed surgeons performed the same task as 12 military medical technicians who were randomized to remotely telementored (RTM) (n = 7) or unmentored (UTM) (n=5) real-time guidance by a trauma surgeon. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in fluid loss between the surgeons and the UTM group or between the UTM and RTM groups. However, when comparing the RTM group with the surgeons, there was significantly more total fluid loss (p = 0.001) and greater loss during the identification (p = 0.002), retraction (p = 0.035), direction (p = 0.014), and packing(p = 0.022) stages. There were no significant differences in fluid loss after packing between the groups despite differences in the number of sponges used; RTM group used more sponges than the surgeons and significantly more than the UTM group (p = 0.048). However, mentoring significantly increased self-assessed nonsurgeon procedural confidence (p = 0.004). CONCLUSION: Perihepatic packing of an exsanguinating liver hemorrhage model was readily performed by military medical technicians after a focused briefing. While real-time telementoring did not improve fluid loss, it significantly increased nonsurgeon procedural confidence, which may augment the feasibility of the concept by allowing them to undertake psychologically daunting procedures.