More than 250,000 Americans die each year from preventable medical errors, according to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“That means medical errors are now the third-leading cause of death in the country — yes, the third-leading cause of death of all people. The number of lives that are lost each day to a medical error, a preventable error, is equivalent to a 747 going down daily,” says Dr. Jennifer Arnold, a neonatologist and medical director for the Center for Medical Simulation and Innovative Education at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg.

Arnold’s work is focused on reducing those errors, particularly in medical emergency situations involving children. The simulation center, which moved into a new, $95-million, 225,000-sq.-ft. Johns Hopkins All Children’s Research and Education Building this fall, features 15 simulation rooms, a dozen hightech mannequins and education space for medical personnel to test their skills in simulated emergencies and learn from the experiences.

Researchers will track some students, who will include All Children’s physicians and nurses, as well as emergency medical personnel from other facilities, and gather data on patient outcomes to see if the simulation training actually helps reduce errors. Previous research, Arnold says, indicated that simulationbased team training reduces errors between 20% and 30%

A focus of the work is training the personnel in teams, since many medical errors result from miscommunication among group members. Arnold says between 60% and 70% of errors “have been found to be a result of a deficiency of teamwork and communication, particularly during a crisis.”

The center’s 3-D printer lab will have the capability of creating exact models or organs, including a sick child’s heart, that the entire operating team can then use to practice for an upcoming surgery.

Arnold says the simulation center will make a “huge difference” for hospital patients — not just in St. Petersburg — but also throughout the region and state as more outside physicians and other medical personal train there.

“The technology here, all the computers to run the mannequins, that’s just the tool,” Arnold says. “What it all provides is an opportunity for our providers to become really experts, to hone their skills, not only their clinical skills and their procedural skills, but most importantly their behavioral and communication skills.”

Homework

Medical simulation training isn’t just for doctors, nurses and other medical personnel. It’s for moms and dads, too. “A lot of our kids have a lot of medical complexity,” says Dr. Jennifer Arnold, medical director for the Center for Medical Simulation and Innovative Education at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. “They go home with tracheotomies or on ventilators. The parents — we train them the best we can on their own child with the routine care. But if an emergency happens, which we know it’s going to — 80% of the kids in this population have a life-threatening emergency within the first six weeks after discharge — their parents never have a chance to practice. With simulation training, we can immerse them in that crisis.”

By the Numbers

The Johns Hopkins All Children’s Research and Education Building:

• Opened: Sept. 20, 2018
• Cost: $95 million
• Size: 225,000 square feet
• Rooms: 15 simulation rooms, including mock patient rooms, an operating room, an ambulance, an elevator and a home environment
• Biorepository: The space can hold up to 3 million tissue, blood and other biomedical specimens
• Lab Space: 40,000 square feet
• Extras: A 150-seat restaurant with its decor inspired by the George Peabody Library at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore