Center of Healthcare Expertise

The development of expertise involves multi-professional teaching techniques that take ethical and ecological perspectives into account. Clinical skills are practised using various simulators, small-scale training models, appropriate medical devices and biomaterials. From time to time we also create new training models ourselves. Training is planned and implemented in a multidisciplinary manner, making use of medical, health sciences, and pedagogical expertise. Training and skills are assessed systematically and training activities are developed using a research-based approach.

The Center of Healthcare Expertise's activities are guided by a multidisciplinary steering group consisting of representatives from social welfare and health care services, rescue services, the University of Jyväskylä, and JAMK University of Applied Sciences. Furthermore, the activities are supported by a instructors’ advisory board from the Wellbeing Services County of Central Finland. The Center has teaching and training facilities (E3 Kuusi, Kataja and Koivu) at Hospital Nova, where some of the training equipment and devices are located. You can access the premises with a staff pass. Plenty of skill and simulation training sessions also take place in other units' own premises. Medical specialist, specialising physician, physicians undergoing specialist training in general medicine, graduates with a bachelor’s degree in medicine, multidisciplinary teams in emergency departments, nursing staff, health centre physicians, and students are all groups who regularly benefit from the training the Center offers. The scope and methods for implementation of the training vary. In workshop-type training, manual clinical skills focusing on individual procedures for which various training models have been acquired are practised. The broader training programmes include both theoretical instruction and practical training, either using a simulator or real-life patient work. These programmes support the qualification requirements for professional education, for instance in training for specialising physicians.

The simulators and devices used at the Center of Healthcare Expertise allow participants to practise procedures such as:

• gastrointestinal and colon endoscopy procedures
• upper and lower intestinal endoscopies and bronchoscopy procedures
• ophthalmic surgery procedures
• diagnostic and procedure skills focusing on ultrasound technology and identifying and excluding pathological findings for target organs
• gynaecological procedures such as a hysterectomy through the vagina and through the abdominal wall
• multi-professional resuscitation and first aid for persons of different ages
• abdominal cavity closure technique after opening for a procedure and manual knot tying techniques
• procedures requiring access through the abdominal wall, such as gallbladder and appendix removal and hysterectomy
• multi-professional care of emergency and trauma patients
• multi-professional treatment in emergency caesarean sections and difficulties during childbirth (shoulder dystocia, massive haemorrhage)
• multidisciplinary resuscitation of newborns and children
• controlling intra-abdominal massive haemorrhages.

Training programmes at the Center include:

• ‘Lupa leikata’ (Permission to operate) – a course on laparoscopic gallstone surgery for physicians specialising in surgery
  for physicians specialising in surgery
• induction for physicians specialising in anaesthesiology for bronchoscopy; pulmonary diseases; ear, nose and throat diseases; and surgery
• echocardiography training for physicians working in acute medicine, anaesthesiology, internal medicine and emergency medicine
• training on brain ultrasounds for paediatric diseases
• ‘Lupa leikata’ (Permission to operate) laparoscopic adnexal procedure training programme for physicians specialising in gynaecology and obstetrics
• emergency medical care and transportation course (five days) for physicians involved in or intending to be involved in patient transportation.

Multidisciplinary team training promotes not only medical expertise but also interaction skills, clinical decision-making, cooperation and management skills, and teamwork skills. Team training often involves working with a simulation dummy or a standardised patient. We have a number of patient simulators available, from newborn to adult patient size. All members of the treatment team participate in the team training at the same time and the training is carried out in an authentic treatment environment. Some multidisciplinary teamwork training sessions are implemented in so far as resources allow in cooperation between different units, such as simulation training on the treatment of a high-energy disabled patient from the emergency department to the operating theatre. 

The objective of training activities is to promote patient safety both in everyday activities and training situations. Clinical skills are practised adhering to ethically sustainable principles without posing patient safety risks. Teaching and training are separated from patient work and take place in calm training spaces, facilitating an effective learning process and good learning outcomes, which are also continuously monitored. The feedback given by the participants on the training they have received has been very positive: 

• It’s great to get the chance to practise these things in a simulation situation so you don't have to practise in the real situation.
• An excellent simulation, I hope these will continue to be held regularly.
• An excellent set-up! Ten out of ten!

Trainer training, such as guidance training, supports clinical trainers' pedagogical thinking and activities. Trainers' teaching methods and perceptions of learning will become deeper and more multifaceted, allowing training to be tailored to the different needs of the participants and facilitating the use of broad guidance skills both within and outside of the Center’s training activities. Trainers are encouraged to participate in, for example, ‘Tukea ohjaustyöhön - pedagoginen koulutus lääkäreille’ (Support for guidance work – pedagogical training for physicians), which will start launch in autumn 2024, serving as the Wellbeing Services County’s own inhouse training for physicians.

The creation of the first learning games began in 2020, based on practical nursing needs, from where they have expanded to now be widely used for a variety of purposes. A learning game acts as an independent learning method for reinforcing and ensuring personnel have the required skills, as familiarisation material forming part of a broader whole, as advance learning material for training, as part of an initial lecture, as a method for providing orientation on the subject of the training, or solely for testing personnel’s skill level. The usability and usefulness of learning games in the development of skills are systematically mapped and players' experiences are positive.

We also have a ThingLink application, which is currently used for familiarisation in, for example, the emergency department and the neonatal ward. In addition to this, a Polycam licence has facilitated the production of 3D models for learning and familiarisation for nursing in operating theatres.