Increase Intensive Care Staff Comfort and Proficiency With Emergent Re-sternotomy in the Post-Open-Heart Patient by Using SynDaver® Simulation

Simulation training has been used in many avenues such as aeronautics, law enforcement, and healthcare to assist in training personnel to learn a new task and perform highly technical procedures. Simulation training has demonstrated beneficial for providing low-use, high-risk jobs such as landing a plane with a complete engine failure, performing reconstructive surgery, and even emergent lifesaving procedures. Our simulation training group chose to develop our custom hands-on training to perform emergent re-sternotomy on the post-open-heart patient based upon this belief. The goal of this project was to assist the bedside intensive care nurse in their self-perception of being comfortable and proficient in helping the physician with the procedure of an emergent re-sternotomy on the post-surgical open-heart patient. Measurement of self-perception of comfort and proficient was measured with a pre/post-questionnaire. The pre/post-questionnaire results showed improvement ranging from an increase in self-scoring from 1.2 to 1.7, with statistical significance demonstrated with a p <0.05.