The University of Florida (UF) Department of Anesthesiology’s Center for Safety, Simulation & Advanced Learning Technologies (CSSALT) moved from the Harrell Medical Education Building to room CG-15 on the ground floor of the Communicore Building, bringing the lab closer to the department and making its training, simulation, and research resources more accessible.
CSSALT offers key training and education to learners and professionals within UF, including UF College of Medicine faculty, residents, fellows, nurses, advanced practice providers, and medical students. They also facilitate procedural training in community hospitals. In addition, the center develops online, guided-simulation courses for the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation’s Technology Education Initiative and has developed continuing medical education courses for the UF Quality and Patient Safety Initiative.
The center’s goal is to improve patient safety by training clinicians to use equipment, practice procedures, and refine care processes via simulation with debriefing, and to support the innovation of devices, workflows, and patient-safety systems. Samsun Lampotang, Ph.D., the Joachim S. Gravenstein Professor of Anesthesiology, is the director of CSSALT and Christopher Samouce, Ph.D., assistant scientist; David Lizdas, engineer III; and Simon Mesber, application programmer I, are his core team, along with many student volunteers who obtain hands-on experience in biomedical engineering.
One of CSSALT’s hallmarks is its one-day simulation course that fulfills a requirement of the American Board of Anesthesiology’s Maintenance of Certification in Anesthesiology (MOCA®) program. Lampotang along with Nikolaus Gravenstein, M.D., the Jerome H. Modell, M.D., Distinguished Professor of Anesthesiology and lead clinical advisor for CSSALT, obtained the endorsement of the American Society of Anesthesiology for CSSALT to provide MOCA® credit and have advanced many other educational and innovative initiatives through the center.
Patient safety and simulation have been the focus of CSSALT since the center’s creation in 1985, when it was founded by Joachim S. Gravenstein, M.D., and Jan Beneken, Ph.D. Lampotang, assisted by Samouce, continue the research and development with the same aim. Currently, CSSALT is working with UF Health Nursing on streamlining chest and urine drainage management through automated, remote, and continuous monitoring via computer vision, a branch of artificial intelligence. They are also working with Tim Feldheim, M.D., and Juan Mora, M.D., on improving a simulator for fluoroscopy-guided procedures that reduces trainee exposure to ionizing radiation, and with Cole Dooley, M.D., on better monitoring of IV fluid administration in infants and children using a digital hanging scale and a caudal block simulator developed in collaboration with UF engineering undergraduates. Additionally, Samouce is leading research on procedural ablation simulation and on measuring trace end-tidal propofol in exhaled breath as a correlate of blood propofol concentration.
With its new location in the Communicore, CSSALT’s bench-testing facilities, 3D-printer, and collection of simulators are more accessible to all anesthesiology faculty, residents, and fellows for training and research.