Abstract
Background and aims: Birmingham Children’s Hospital has provided cardiac Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS) since 2008, and is a designated surge respiratory centre. Staff were initially trained at an experienced high volume centre. Aims: This was expensive, had limited places and quickly became unsustainable for our growing service. Methods: A comparative analysis of cost, including course fees, travel, backfill, teacher costs, room hire, equipment hire was conducted. Our education and ECLS teams collaborated to develop a tailor made, quality controlled education programme with a pilot course in January 2012 for 12 staff. Results: The cost analysis revealed the actual cost of external education was £4000 compared with £1500 per person for an in house provision. Our pilot course received excellent evaluations. 100% of candidates felt they gained clear understanding of ECLS and managing emergencies. Knowledge was tested with a written and practical exam, with 100% pass rate. The course is now established with 4 intakes per year, with 102 participants so far, including 33 external candidates. For in-house staff, there are 40 hours of bedside preceptorship, with ongoing education including annual updates, wet labs and bedside teaching. Conclusions: This programme is essential in supporting team and service growth. It is quality controlled and has 100% positive evaluation. There has been a cost saving of £2500 per person trained and income generated enables a cost neutral programme. We recommend developing in-house bespoke education for ECLS in low volume centres such as ours, to create sustainability and cost saving.
Published Version
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