A Hazardous Materials Educational Curriculum Improves Pediatric Emergency Department Staff Skills

Abstract

Objective: Emergency department (ED) providers require competency in responding to hazardous materials (HAZMAT) events. The optimal strategies to teach HAZMAT response principles to ED providers and to ensure skill retention are not known. Our aim was to design, implement, and evaluate a multifaceted, interprofessional educational curriculum for pediatric ED staff to improve their skills, knowledge, and confidence in responding to a HAZMAT event.Methods: In this longitudinal cohort study, we created and assessed a 3-hour educational curriculum comprised of didactics, skills stations, a tabletop exercise, and a simulated multivictim disaster. Learning objectives included critical aspects of pediatric HAZMAT incident response with an emphasis on donning personal protective equipment (PPE). The primary outcome was the number of HAZMAT PPE donning steps correctly completed within 10 minutes at pre-and postcurriculum assessments measured using a 32-item checklist. Secondary outcomes included skill retention at 3 months, change in knowledge assessed using multiple-choice questions, and change in participant confidence.Results: Eighty-one of 84 participants (96%) completed the entire curriculum. Compared to the precurriculum assessment, participants completed more donning steps correctly after the intervention (mean increase = 58%, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 48%-70%). Relative to the baseline, more steps were also correctly completed at 3 months (mean increase = 49%, 95% CI = 38%-61%). Performance on multiple-choice knowledge questions and confidence in skills also significantly increased from the pre-to postcurriculum assessments. Conclusions:A newly developed HAZMAT educational curriculum improved skills-based performance, knowledge, and confidence in PPE and decontamination skills. Brief, multifaceted educational interventions for ED staff can effectively develop sustainable skills needed for uncommon emergency events.M ass casualty incidents in the emergency department (ED) setting are "high-stakes but low-frequency" events, 1 making training and retention of skills difficult. Response to events involving patient exposure to hazardous materials (HAZMAT) is an important part of ED disaster-preparedness protocols.

Perceptions of Thai Healthcare Instructors on Components of Interprofessional Education: A Phenomenological Study

“…(4) Knowledge is integrated from a multidiscipline to commit to lifelong learning and embracing challenges and experiences. Knowledge across multi-disciplinary is becoming increasingly crucial in IPE (Kessler et al, 2016;Hewett et al, 2017;Goldman et al, 2018;Abu-Sultaneh et al, 2019;Hartford et al, 2019). It can seem that multidiscipline can use diverse knowledge and expertise to understand IPE better.…”

Chemical-Biological Terrorism and Its Impact on Children

“…14 In addition, studies have revealed an increase in clinical staff's knowledge and confidence with pediatric disaster skills with short, topic-focused educational interventions. 15,16 There are also review articles of pediatric disaster courses to educate health care professionals. 15,17,18…”

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“…Recent pediatric research has demonstrated that educational efforts increase health care professionals' knowledge and confidence, which may improve their participation during an actual event. 5,6 Syndromic surveillance (detection of health indicators that precede diagnosis) potentially signals early stages of a chemical release or an infectious disease outbreak and may serve to minimize consequences. Reports of unusual presentations from pediatricians and other clinicians are critical, but additional methods may inform rapid epidemic detection.…”