New Defibrillator Training

Mike Dumais won’t settle for anything less than 100 percent, and he has the numbers to prove it. Virtually all 2400 nurses and medical assistants at BWH have now been trained on BWH’s new state-of-the-art lifesaving defibrillators.

“No technology is introduced into BWH without proper in-servicing,” said Dumais, RN, BSN, MEd, BWH's bedside technology specialist. “Everyone required to use the new technology on a floor must be trained in order for that floor to receive it.”

The new defibrillators have an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) function that allows nurses to defibrillate a patient without waiting for a physician or defibrillator certified nurse to come to the bedside. According to Dumais, defibrillation within the first minutes increases survival rates significantly.

Training, which took place in September, was split into two shifts so that nurses could attend at their convenience. Nurses viewed a 20-minute video followed by a step-by-step hands-on tutorial about the defibrillator. “The hands-on training lasted about 40 minutes,” said Dumais. “But we encouraged nurses to stay until they were comfortable with the equipment.”

“The patient safety aspect of this is that we should see immediate defibrillations,” added Dumais. “The quicker you can defibrillate, the more lives you can save.”