VCU Nurse Anesthesia Program earns grant to produce patient safety films

By Michael Ford
University News Services

Researchers in Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Nurse Anesthesia have earned a $10,500 grant to produce a series of patient safety films to teach alternative approaches to dealing with clinical problems, provide remedial instruction or to introduce new technologies.

The award from the A.D. Williams Fund will sponsor production of 10 films by the nurse anesthesia team in the School of Allied Health Professions. The A.D. Williams Fund is a privately supported research foundation associated with VCU that supports medical scholarship and health-related research.

Designed as teaching tools for students and practicing hospital personnel, the vignettes simulate real-life situations in the operating room that finish abruptly, sometimes without committing to a particular course of action. The vignettes are based on real case reports and identify actual problems, errors and mistakes that have lead to adverse patient outcomes.

Co-investigators for the grant, Chuck Biddle, Ph.D., C.R.N.A., professor and director of research in the Department of Nurse Anesthesia, William Hartland, Jr., Ph.D., C.R.N.A., associate professor and director of education in the Department of Nurse Anesthesia and Michael D. Fallacaro, D.N.S., C.R.N.A., professor and chair in the Department of Nurse Anesthesia in the School of Allied Health Professions, have developed the various patient scenarios by drawing on the top 20 national areas of patient concern.

"It is a low cost easily disseminated tool, that we can use to focus on certain problem areas and educate people about how these kinds of problems can be dealt with in a better way or even prevented altogether," said Biddle. "By studying patient safety scenarios that occurred in real-world care, we hope to prevent their reoccurrence."

The films feature live actors that understand the healthcare setting and the many variables that are part of the patient care scenario. Sometimes the films end without a resolution for an adverse situation, provoking discussion or thought. Other films have a resolution, the result of weeks of research to determine an "evidence-based" or "best practice" approach to preventing the mishap that is profiled.

"We design the operating room vignettes to be realistic," Hartland said. "We want the students and practicing professionals to buy into what they are seeing, so they can sit there and 'think that could be me and wonder what would I have done in that situation?"

Although the films run two to four minutes, they take several weeks to produce, between four to six hours to shoot and up to 10 hours to edit.