Rural Oklahoma Providers Learn Lifesaving Skills

Aug. 15--Rural healthcare providers from throughout northeast Oklahoma have come to Tulsa to receive training in lifesaving techniques as part of the Comprehensive Advanced Life Support program.

The program began Wednesday with about 25 providers from eight hospitals.

It is taught by certified instructors from Minnesota, where the program was first developed, and from Missouri.

Rod Hargrave with Oklahoma State University's Office of Rural Health, which financed the program, said the idea is to improve healthcare in rural Oklahoma, where one hospital may be the only access to healthcare that residents have.

"That's what this is all about, providing a better quality of life for our rural Oklahomans," he said.

Five similar training sessions have been held in Oklahoma, but this week's is the first in the Tulsa area, he said.

The training approach involves splitting the participants into teams and giving them scenarios like those they might encounter in an emergency room.

"We focus heavily on the team concept of management," said Dr. Michael Wilcox, Comprehensive Advanced Life Support program instructor with the University of Minnesota.

It is preferable to have the teams made up of people from different hospitals, so the healthcare providers can learn to work with a variety of people, he said.

"They have to learn to adjust," he said. "I think it opens their eyes a little bit."

The teams have to decide the proper course of action to save the life of the person in the scenario.

One example was a 7-year-old girl with a headache and fever who had just returned from Africa and hadn't been vaccinated. Another was a 20-year-old man who had gotten into a fight at a bar and fallen down a flight of stairs.

The focus of the training is an emergency room setting but the skills learned can be applied in many ways, Wilcox said.

"They can use the techniques they're training them to use anywhere in the hospital," he said.

Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378

shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com

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