The High Acuity Low Occurrence (HALO) course brought together 18 members of the Emergency Department team, including doctors and senior nurses, to learn and practise the skills needed for rare but life-threatening emergencies.
Developed and delivered by DBTH’s Emergency Department, Trauma and Education teams, the course focused on procedures that staff may not perform often but need to be ready for at a moment’s notice. These included managing blocked airways, draining fluid from around the heart, caring for pregnant women during cardiac arrest and treating patients with severe traumatic injuries.
As in real-life emergencies, doctors and nurses trained side by side throughout the day. To make the training as realistic as possible, practical sessions used specially prepared animal tissue commonly used in medical education, giving participants the opportunity to practise complex emergency procedures in a safe, highly realistic environment before performing them on patients.
Sam Debbage, Director of Education at DBTH, said: “The course provided an excellent opportunity for our medical and nursing colleagues in the Emergency Department to come together and learn as one team.
“By training side by side in realistic emergency scenarios, they were able to build confidence, strengthen communication and better understand each other’s roles. Ultimately, that teamwork helps ensure we’re able to provide the safest, highest-quality care for patients when they need us most.”
Following the success of the course, DBTH hopes to offer more HALO training in the future, giving even more colleagues the opportunity to develop the specialist skills needed to care for some of the sickest patients who come through the Emergency Department.
