Collaborations

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Mission Control for Healthcare

“On a quest to improve safety and efficiency, one hospital is taking a cue from NASA's Mission Control and developing a hospital operations center.”  This is the title of Dr. Halamek's article published in Children's Hospitals Today, Fall 2014.  Spaceflight and healthcare are both complex, data-rich, time-pressured activities that present significant risk to human life and require a high degree of safety, efficiency and effectiveness.  Because of these similarities in training and operations, cross-industries collaboration produces tremendous value.  Dr. Halamek and his team at CAPE are collaborating with the professionals at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, to improve their approach to simulation-based training, debriefing, safety and, most recently, development of a concept for a hospital operations center modeled after NASA’s Mission Control. 

Federal Aviation Association

Concise, Precise Communication

Communication between the pilots of commercial airliners and air traffic controllers is brief yet information-rich.  Recognizing a need to pattern communication during time-pressured events such as the resuscitative efforts delivered to patients in crisis, Drs. Halamek and Yamada have established a collaborative relationship with the professionals at the FAA in Washington, DC, in an effort to develop a lexicon for communication during neonatal resuscitation that will facilitate an accurate exchange of critical data and timely conversion of that data into actionable information.  This work is likely to result in changes in the guidelines for neonatal, pediatric and adult resuscitation on a national and international level.

Center for Aviation Safety Research at St. Louis University

Cross-industry Collaboration in Safety

St. Louis University, the home of CASR, located within the Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology, has been instrumental in facilitating interaction among safety professionals in industries as diverse as those involving petrochemicals, mass transportation, and the military.  Through his involvement with CASR’s Safety Across High Consequences Industries annual conference and his appointment as Senior Fellow and Adjunct Faculty at CASR, Dr. Halamek has established relationships with professionals working on improving safety in numerous human endeavors characterized by high risk to life. 

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)

The Evolution of the Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP)

As the world’s first simulation-based training and research center dedicated to the fetal, neonatal, pediatric and obstetric sciences, it was almost a fait accompli that CAPE would establish a longstanding relationship with the AAP and the NRP.  In his role as Co-Chair of the NRP's National Steering Committee, Dr. Halamek facilitated the transition of the NRP from a textbook and skills-based training program into a simulation-based experience where trainees are immersed in highly realistic re-creations of challenging clinical events.  This collaboration has resulted in the extension of the work conducted within CAPE’s walls to children and pregnant women around the world.    

Laerdal Medical

Advancing the Cause of Resuscitation and Emergency Care

When CAPE opened its doors in 2002 as the first dedicated pediatric and obstetric simulation-based training and research center, very few patient simulators other than adult cardiopulmonary resuscitation manikins were in existence.  In order to meet the need for sophisticated fetal, neonatal, pediatric and obstetric simulation, Dr. Halamek and his team at CAPE worked with the staff at Laerdal Medical to assist with the design and testing of a series of new patient simulators that span the spectrum from relatively low-complexity, easy-to-use, inexpensive task trainers and manikins to computer-driven, full-body patient simulators that respond to trainee interventions in a highly realistic manner and exhibit multiple visual and auditory cues.