Simulation for anesthesia in obstetrics

Abstract

Simulation has become a major player in the medical world. Still way behind other high-risk industries, simulation is being increasingly accepted and finds its ways into many clinical areas. Simulation offers the possibility to train individual skills as well as to evaluate performance, provide group crisis management training or even investigate the safety of installed systems and algorithms without risking patient's life. Obstetric units and labor suites have been identified as high-risk areas in the hospital setting and can be challenging environments for the anesthesiologist. Simulators can be used to improve communication skills and workload distribution, and specifically drill for obstetric-relevant crisis scenarios. However, it remains unclear how well these trainings do transfer into clinical performance and improved patient outcome. Being a relevant cost factor, simulation will have to provide answers to these questions; hence, more research is needed in the future.

Keywords: anesthesiology; labor; obstetrics; simulation.