Remote-controlled 'man' Called IStan Trains Healthcare Professionals

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Also Included In: IT / Internet / E-mail
Article Date: 28 Jul 2008 - 1:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

A wireless, portable mannequin which can be remote-controlled to talk, sweat, bleed, vomit and have a heart attack is helping put the University of Portsmouth at the forefront of clinical simulation and training in Europe.

The mannequin, named iStan, is the most advanced patient simulator on the market and the world's first wireless patient simulator. The university is the first in England to have such cutting edge technology at its fingertips.

The iStan costs £40,000 and will give students a large dose of reality while they are learning. He will be used to train healthcare professionals along with five other simulators 'living' and 'dying' at the university's Expert Centre.

Director of the ExPERT Centre, Professor Lesley-Jane Eales-Reynolds, said: "One of the key advantages of iStan is his portability, but he is also more advanced than many of our other mannequins and, for example, can be pre-filled with 'blood' and other body fluids and remote-controlled from up to 50 feet away. He can also be taken into large teaching areas to provide live demonstrations and allow students to 'call the shots' exploring what they want to know.

"He can also be used in real-world situations. For paramedic students he can be put in a crashed car or collapsed at the foot of some stairs, which is precisely the sort of situation they are likely to encounter in the real world.

"He can have a cardiac arrest or an adverse drug reaction in a dental chair allowing staff and students in dentistry to practise skills that they could not keep honed using their patients. He can also be used by students and staff on refresher courses to practise skills they might rarely use in real life making them better prepared for a whole host of unusual problems and conditions in addition to more routine ones."

The iStan, named after 'standard man', was designed from the inside out so his anatomical structure closely mimics a human skeleton. His spine, neck, arms and hips all mimic the movement of a real person. He can be male or female, young or old and can be healthy one day and dying the next. He can cry and blink, his pupils can dilate and contract, his blood pressure can fall, internal organs bleed, bowels make realistic sounds and lungs collapse. Most modern simulators on the market have some of these capabilities but what makes iStan special is a whole host of added features including:

-- He is entirely wireless and unfettered so can be placed in someone’s home, an ambulance or a doctor's waiting room as well as in the classroom;

-- Has a fully articulated spine, neck, arms and hips;

-- Blood and body fluids loaded on board;

-- He has realistic skin which can be made to sweat and have goosebumps;

-- The body cavity can be stretched to accommodate a 'baby' to simulate pregnancy;

-- He can be used to simulate a stabbing in which a realistic bowel protrudes from the stomach;

-- He can have a broken leg with the bone protruding through the skin;

-- He can have a limb torn off and be bleeding profusely to simulate a road traffic accident;

-- His nails turn blue when pinched.

In addition, the suppliers have an online 32-page recipe book for lecturers to create realistic vomit, urine with infection, blood clots, pus, the fruity breath of someone with a specific diabetic condition and a host of other bodily fluids and conditions.

Phil Ashwell, a healthcare professional who teaches at the university, said: "It is very exciting, it's a whole new world of learning. The mannequins suspend disbelief and bring healthcare to life which means the quality of casualty care will improve. The students are very lucky to learn in this safe environment. When I was training all we had to practice on was 'Resus Annie', a folded up mannequin in a suitcase.

For more information visit the following link:
http://durrants.mediacoverage.co.uk/pr/34566892/p5Yimm1s

"Some of the students are a bit wary when they first meet the simulators because they are so realistic. But once they have started practising on one they are fine and they learn so much faster and in more depth. The mannequins promote better, more efficient teamwork and care, which are both vital in the healthcare industry."

The Expert Centre is already a centre for excellence in health science education and now the South Central Strategic Health Authority is working with the centre on its plans for the provision of region-wide continuing professional development and education through clinical simulation.

Professor Eales-Reynolds said: "We have the most extensive facilities in the region and we have the research background as well. The authority wants the South Central area to be at the forefront of clinical simulation in Europe and we aim to help them achieve this.

"The mannequins provide our students with opportunities they have never had before. They can learn their basic skills in the usual way on plastic models but as they become more competent they can then apply those skills in a situation designed to mimic the real world."

The iStan will be joining the university's family of simulators, including a human patient simulator with anaesthetic and drug-recognition capabilities, an emergency care simulator, two other adults and one child. The iStan can be housed with the others in the university's hospital ward and operating theatre to help students practise and gain confidence in their professional skills.

The mannequins are used to causing a stir; the forerunner of iStan made his Hollywood debut when he appeared on the television programme ER.

The iStan is supplied by METI in America. He was modelled using a cast of a real person and comes supplied with a range of preconfigured patient profiles and scenarios which lecturers can add to in order to suit their own training needs. He was initially designed for the military to help medics and other emergency staff including firefighters save lives on battlefields or in mass casualty events.

1. On March 5, 2008, the Government's top health adviser Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said the Government would introduce a new system where doctors received training once they had qualified using simulators. He said there were at least 100 checks made on pilots every four years, but for doctors there were none and added: 'You would not want to step on a plane going to Beijing on a flight with a pilot who had never been on a simulator, but you would go to a hospital with a surgeon who has not. I believe (simulators) offer great opportunities to improve patient safety.'

2. Lord Darzi, parliamentary under secretary of State at the Department of Health, a surgeon and author of a report this summer on the future of the NHS, is a keen advocate of the use of simulators to train healthcare professionals and said they would be a welcome addition to the government's 'excellence in education' strategy to produce world-class health care professionals for the 21st century.

3. The original mannequin used to train healthcare professionals in CPR was Resus Annie. According to some stories she was brought to life when Asmund Laerdal began developing a realistic and effective training aid to teach mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He believed that if such a mannequin was life-sized and extremely realistic in appearance, students would be better motivated to learn this lifesaving procedure.

University of Portsmouth
http://www.port.ac.uk

• Additional
• References
• Citations