Raymond Wu*, Transcension HealthCare LLC, Skokie, United States Track: Business Presentation Topic: Digital Learning Presentation Type: DEMO Interactive Session Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: LKSC Conference Center Stanford Room: DEMO Interactive Session Upper Lobby Date: 2011-09-17 12:35 PM – 12:50 PM Last modified: 2011-08-15

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In the U.S., it is estimated that at least 500,000 patients a year suffer from cardiac arrest requiring resuscitation. Patient outcomes depend greatly on the quality of the resuscitation effort and well-executed resuscitation requires a coordinated team effort led by an effective team leader. Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) is a set of skills used by healthcare professionals to help patients experiencing life-threatening events. With over 4 million physicians, nurses, paramedics and other healthcare professionals in the rapidly growing U.S. healthcare industry, there is need for effective and efficient ACLS training. Current training methods do not provide the necessary practice to become competent or comfortable with these skills. In addition, there are no effective yet scalable methods to maintain and track competency between the standard biannual ACLS training classes. Annually in the U.S., an estimated $100M is spent on training classes while another $260M is incurred in lost revenues and additional work coverage costs. Current Conditions and Competition Traditional training methods cram large amounts of complex material in 1-2 days without follow up. Studies have shown that they fail to adequately teach and maintain ACLS skills, with retention limited to 3-6 months, far short of the 2-year “recertification” cycle in use today. They also fail to establish consistency among various training centers, teach team dynamics, or track ongoing ACLS competency. Physical simulation labs improve performance and retention and are therefore gaining in popularity. However they suffer from critical issues including extremely high cost, geographic and time limitation of resources, and varying simulation quality. Similarly, the few currently available computer-based ACLS simulators are deficient in many aspects including low levels of realism, lack of team management training, and low “replay value” (due to limited numbers of scripted scenarios). The Solution SimCode ACLS™ is a web-based training system which uses Rich Internet Application technology and the “Software-as-a-Service” model to provide a highly-scalable and cost-effective training solution which addresses the issues that plague other training modalities. This system can also achieve the following critical goals: 1) to provide consistent, real-time, high-fidelity ACLS simulation training anywhere and anytime; 2) to foster development of team management skills; 3) to facilitate centralized storage of simulation performance data; 4) to enable users and supervisors to easily review performance history and track simulation competency; and 5) to facilitate rapid distribution of updates to ACLS protocols and system improvements to ACLS providers. Current Stage of Development The SimCode ACLS™ simulator component has been commercialized and used by individuals around the world, as well as several US institutions. Over the past year, our company has been invited to present it at several conferences including the 11th International Meeting on Simulation in HealthCare, the international 2010 American Society of Anesthesiologists Annual Meeting, and national 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine. The system is under constant evolution based on the advances in resuscitation and digital education research as well as internal and external feedback. In addition, we are currently developing a novel learning component targeted for novices.