ACADEMICS & RESEARCH: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Education has been an integral and valued component of the mission of Hartford
Hospital. In 1877, the Hartford Hospital School of Nursing was established as the
fourth school of nursing in the United States. In 1942, Hartford Hospital appointed
a director of medical education which was the first position of this kind in a nonuniversity teaching hospital in the United States. Today Hartford Hospital is the
primary teaching hospital for the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and
provides extensive education for physicians in the undergraduate, graduate, and
postgraduate arena. It also provides educational opportunities for nurses and allied
health providers. In 2007, the hospital was certified as a Level I Education
Institute by the American College of Surgeons. This institute is one of over 60
nationally certified simulations centers which are dedicated to enhancing patient
safety through simulated education. The simulation center at Hartford Hospital was
initiated in 2004 and has been expanded to become the Center for Education,
Simulation and Innovation (CESI).
Hartford Hospital has an extensive Department of Education and maintains
affiliation agreements with 23 organizations. There are 25 residency and fellowship
programs offered at Hartford Hospital through the University of Connecticut and 16
programs are offered by the hospital independently. Hartford Hospital offers an
extensive program of education and continuing education for members of the
Department of Nursing. Five area schools of nursing use Hartford Hospital as a
clinical site. In addition, Hartford Hospital maintains a school of allied health as
well as an extensive of EMS education.
The State of Connecticut Department of Public Health designated Hartford Hospital
as a Center of Excellence for Disaster Preparedness. Hartford Hospital is
responsible for assessment planning and training in the 15 acute care hospitals and
76 communities that make up the northern tier of Connecticut.
There are multiple different groups that participate in education at the Education
Institute. They include anesthesia residents, cardiology fellows, emergency
medicine residents, OB-Gyn residents, surgical residents, toxicology fellows, trauma
fellows, Hartford Hospital nursing staff, and LIFE STAR air medical providers. Some
of the specific educational programs are the Advanced Trauma Operative
Management, Advanced Trauma Life Support, Basic and Advanced Airway
Management, Advanced Cardiac Life Support, Operating Room crisis management,
ICU crisis management, Anesthesia crisis management, Obstetrical emergency
care, as well as Orientation to critical care nursing, cardiology nursing, and fire
safety.
Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation
Hartford Hospital has implemented an innovative approach to standardizing and
delivering a uniform standard of care throughout the institution. The method is
that a curriculum is developed jointly with the clinical department leaders in
medicine, nursing, and allied health. This curriculum embodies cognitive as well as
psychomotor competencies. The students are then brought to the simulation center
for didactic education followed by clinical scenarios in a real patient environment
with modern mannequins. The full range of clinical activities from resuscitation in
the emergency department, management in the intensive care unit, management
in the operating room, management on patient floors, disaster management, and
management in the air medical environment are provided with real cases and
experienced instructors. The students are then asked to perform standard
procedures both individually and as a team. This process is then evaluated and
debriefed.
A similar process has been implemented for more sophisticated and innovative
programs such as robotic laparoscopic, general, renal, and OB Gyn surgery. The
surgeons and the surgical team is brought into the simulation center and trained
with robots in the simulation environment. The team then goes to the biolaboratory for training in a large animal model where real procedures are performed
in a fully monitored operating room environment. There are similar procedures for
peripheral vascular and cardiovascular interventions.
There are numerous educational opportunities for nurses both individually and in a
team environment in the emergency department, intensive care, and nursing unit
environments.
The goal of this educational activity is to increase and improve the cognitive and
psychomotor skills of the individual practitioner and the team interacting with the
patient. Another goal is to standardize the educational process across the entire
hospital by educating all groups on the use of various types of equipment such as
defibrillators. Once competence has been achieved with the specific device, the
provider is then certified and approved to perform the activity in the human
environment.
Each department provides numerous educational opportunities which are classical
lectures along with multidisciplinary panels. These educational opportunities can be
telemetered by modern high-definition equipment to other hospitals elsewhere in
the region, the nation or world-wide. Participants in other hospitals can join in real
time interactive discussions with the panel or the lecturer. Many of these programs
are certified for continuing medical education with state and national accrediting
bodies.
Research
Hartford Healthcare is dedicated to the mission to bringing the best approach, latest
advances and innovative platforms to patients seeking excellence in healthcare. The
commitment to research is fundamental to learning from clinical outcomes and
improving upon today’s standard of care. Research drives the practice of evidence
based medicine and adoption of new therapeutic approaches into our clinical
practice. To that end, culture of research is essential and integral to our
commitment to train the next generation of physician leaders, to establish
excellence in clinical care by through definitive research to fuel the next generation
of advances in medicine. Our commitment to education and research is critical to
our reputation as a high reliability academic health center with active research
programs and big data analytic expertise. The research program is integrated
across every therapeutic area and helps to establish national leadership and
support education of medical staff, residents and allied health professionals in a
collaborative research model that addresses high priority questions in clinical care
and patient safety. The dissemination of knowledge into actionable healthcare
improvements is facilitated by publishing high quality research that ultimately
represents meaningful outcomes to patients. Our goal is to lead and innovate in
high impact areas that will transform healthcare for our patients and community by
leveraging our expertise in clinical care, translational research, education, and
training into new models of caring for patients.
HHC has nationally recognized research programs in Cardiology, Oncology, Obesity
and metabolic disease, Psychiatry, Infectious Disease, Urology, Surgery, Neurology,
Radiology, and a burgeoning program in biospecimen science that will support the
launch of personalized medicine through specialized system wide core in genomics
data analysis and research. A key strength is our capability to implement cross
disciplinary programs in obesity, geriatrics and women’s health and the expertise to
design innovative approaches to complex diseases. In 2014, over $9M was
invested by external agencies to conduct research that will advance our
understanding of disease and accelerate the development of more effective
treatments. The research program underscores Hartford’s commitment to being a
leader in the next generation of medical care.