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By Navy Lt. Jennifer Cragg
Press Special to American Forces Press Service
News Releases
Press Advisories WASHINGTON, March 11, 2009 – Health care providers at the largest Air Force medical center on the West Coast are
using state-of-the-art, interactive human patient simulators as just one of many safety initiatives to improve medical
Transcripts
care, the medical center’s commander said yesterday.
Special Reports
Heroes “Actually, you would be very surprised. [The simulators] respond
Military just like real patients,” Air Force Col. (Dr.) Lee Payne,
Photographers commander of the 60th Medical Group at David Grant U.S. Air
Warrior Care
Force Medical Center, Travis Air Force Base, Calif., told “Dot Mil
Docs” listeners on Pentagon Web Radio.
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“They breathe, they blink, and they talk back to our staff,
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depending on the scenario,” Payne continued. “They have a
E-Mail pulse, and they react when you treat it right or don’t treat it
RSS properly. It makes the scenario extremely real.”
Podcasts
AFPS News Widget The use of human patient simulators is just one of the many
ways the medical center is implementing the Team Strategies
DoD Info and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety, or
Recovery Act
Dr. Stephen Jones, center, principal deputy assistant TeamSTEPPS, program at one of the largest inpatient military
secretary of defense for health affairs, and Dr. Gail treatment facilities in the Air Force.
Information
Wilensky, Defense Health Board president, receive a
Site Map briefing on the interactive human patient simulator from
Air Force Col. (Dr.) Lee E. Payne, 60th Medical Group “[TeamSTEPPS] really builds their confidence,” Payne said. “Our
Stars & Stripes doctors, nurses and medical technicians have expressed a
commander, and Ivan Fronefield, SimCenter manager,
Veterans Affairs during a visit to the David Grant U.S. Air Force Medical greater sense of confidence in their abilities to perform as teams
Center’s Simulation Center at Travis Air Force Base, when these concepts are used.
Calif. U.S. Air Force photo by Jim Spellman
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution
image available. “Applying these concepts is actually like speaking one common
language,” he continued. “This is due to each team member
understanding what their roles and responsibilities are.”

Payne said training is built into the work day at the center. “We are consistently implementing TeamSTEPPS training
into our practices for our doctors, nurses and medical technicians, and we have seen an increase of incident reporting
as a result,” Payne noted.

TeamSTEPPS is the cornerstone of the Military Health System patient safety program, Payne said. “Our next goal is
to be able prove that [by] improving TeamSTEPPS scores in training scenarios, [we] directly improve patient outcomes
and reduce medical errors.”

Another positive outcome from TeamSTEPPS is the number of process improvements at the center. “Last year, we
used our TeamSTEPPS training in incident reports to generate 46 process improvements,” Payne said.

One example is the introduction of debriefing after each procedure and operation.

“That really improved communication, resulting in a 66 percent decrease in incidents where needed equipment wasn’t
readily available at the time of the procedure,” Payne said.

“It’s really critical that we encourage reporting of incidences and near-misses,” he said. “The identification of these
potential problems allows us to intervene before someone is actually harmed, and so increasing incident reporting is
one of our key strategic objectives.”

Payne said medical center officials continue to set their sights on offering world-class health care. “One of our three
stated objectives is to become the nation’s safest health care organization,” he said. “We submitted our application to
[the Occupational Safety and Heath Administration] to be evaluated in June for [Voluntary Protection Program] Star
status.”

OSHA’s Star program is designed for worksites with exemplary health management systems, according to the OSHA
Web site.

If they are successful, the center will be one of eight hospitals with that status nationwide, and the first in the Defense
Department to receive that recognition.

The medical center provides a full spectrum of care to more than 95,000 eligible beneficiaries, and 400,000 people

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53423 3/12/2009
DefenseLink News Article: Medical Center Uses Innovative Methods to Improve Patient ... Page 2 of 2

eligible through the Veterans Affairs Department's Northern California Health Care System.

(Navy Lt. Jennifer Cragg is assigned to the Defense Media Activity’s Emerging Media directorate.)

Related Sites:
"Dot Mil Docs" on Pentagon Web Radio
David Grant U.S. Air Force Medical Center
Simulation Center

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http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53423 3/12/2009