A ribbon cutting ceremony on July 2 officially opened the Critical Care Flight Paramedic Program Transport Medical Training Laboratory (CCFP TMTL) located in Willis Hall, US Army Medical Department Center and School, US Army Health Readiness Center of Excellence (AMEDDC&S, HRCoE), Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston.
The CCFP TMTL is an immersive training environment utilizing multiple sophisticated, state-of-the-art Human Patient Simulators (HPS), a static airframe medical suite, and a configurable room that will support simulated combat casualty care medical capabilities starting from point of injury through medical evacuation, forward surgical hospital, and the combat support hospital.
Lt. Col. (Dr.) Neil Davids, Center for Pre-Hospital Medicine, Medical Director, Critical Care Flight Paramedic Program, said, "With this lab, we will be able to integrate early on in the flight medic's training the conditions in which he or she will be operating, with the noise, lighting, temperature and wind consistent with operating while in flight."
These capabilities will allow the student to perform patient interventions as required in various critical care scenarios including high risk, low occurrence situations. The HPS are High Fidelity Tetherless Manikins (HFTM) which integrate various training modalities, to include treatment of tension pneumothorax, airway management, intraosseous infusion, and trauma bleeding systems. The CCFP training focuses on transport and intervention of critical care with injuries including poly-trauma, multiple system involvement.
The training emphasizes the need to initiate interventions, maintain patient status, respond to decompensation, and perform equipment checks, as well as transitioning a patient through different levels of care. The HFTM capabilities will prepare the Soldier to perform these tasks in the combat environment, as well as have the capability to integrate the aviation environment earlier in their training.
"While in this environment, the training staff will being able to assess every intervention the student does or does not do through the use of an integrated wireless simulated patient allowing monitoring and video recording every step of the way. The high fidelity simulated patients will react according to what interventions are done and not done to the patient and the training staff will be able to conduct an interactive after action review using the video recordings that are synchronized with the interventions that we are interested in to provide timely and efficient feedback," said Davids.
"Additionally, the patient can be moved into a Forward Surgical Team Suite, where a resuscitation team of nurses, physicians, and medics can receive the patient from the flight medics and ask the pertinent questions, not only improving their skill set but training both teams what the interaction is like and what is expected of both teams prior to having to figure it out when in a deployed environment," he added.
Davids said the training lab has the capability to conduct Video Teleconferencing, which will provide the opportunity to not only conduct classes for students on site, but also provide the potential for continuing education for agencies that are located around the world.
"This will allow for a more consistent educational experience for our flight medics or any other courses that have the need to do the same. The level of technological integration of this facility is second to none, and as we develop more and more skills in its use, we will find better and more realistic ways to integrate all of the systems to make a training experience that is second to none," said Davids.
In order to maintain the highest standards of education and training for U.S. Army Flight Paramedics, in accordance with their initial training, the CCFPP sought accreditation with the Board for Critical Care Transport Paramedic Certification (BCCTPC). This association provides the necessary continuing education credits required to maintain the critical care flight paramedic certification. Flight paramedic certification is a critical care certification created in the mid-1990's. The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio provided students the ability to take the flight paramedic certification beginning with the first pilot class in February 2012. The certification requires 100 contact hours with 16 clinical hours from an approved flight paramedic certification review class. On June 11 of this year, CCFPP obtained a site code from BCCTPC which covers the mandatory 16 clinical hours and includes 56 didactic hours of continuing education credits towards recertification.
The flight paramedic certification signifies the highest level of paramedic expertise. Students cycling through the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have a 95% certification pass rate.
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