Teleflex hosts over 1,000 emergency nurses at recent training event

Teleflex hosts over 1,000 emergency nurses at recent training event

The healthcare industry is ever changing, new products are being introduced continuously and our understanding of best practices continues to grow. As such, clinical education is an excellent way to further professional development and improve patient outcomes by allowing healthcare professionals to get hands-on experience while learning new skills.

Access to these types of educational opportunities come in many forms, but tradeshows and conferences have become an important way to reach broad audiences and make an immediate and broad impact.

We recently sat down with Dan Smith, Vice President, Clinical Medical Affairs at Teleflex to discuss how Teleflex was able to provide educational opportunities at a recent Emergency Nursing Association annual conference in San Diego and to get an understanding of the impact this training had on its attendees.

Teleflex: Can you tell us about your role and how clinical education plays a role in the industry and especially at these types of conferences?

Dan Smith:  I am the Vice President, Clinical and Medical Affairs (CMA) at Teleflex. I am a registered nurse and hold a BSN. We are a global function at Teleflex responsible for our clinical, medical, and scientific operations around the world. Our CMA team is comprised of board-certified physicians, nurses and professional education specialists that truly understand what healthcare professionals do on a daily basis and can provide real-world clinical expertise to further the safe and effective use of our products.

As a team, we execute on key initiatives that support healthcare providers around the world who deliver essential care.  Clinical education is a key part of this.

Many hospitals today are experiencing a high turnover in emergency nursing and the nurses who are often filling these vacancies are new to practice.  As a medical device company, we commit to training on the safe and effective use of our products and can partner with professional societies and hospitals to support education about our products. 

Society Conferences such as the Emergency Nursing Association (ENA) are a great way to reach a large number of people while still giving targeted training.

Teleflex: What were the training events offered by Teleflex at the recent ENA annual conference and what were some highlights of those events?

This year’s ENA was amazing. The conference had a great turnout, and we had a lot of interest and participation in our educational events.

We led a cadaver lab event, whereby 98 nurses (>90% 1st time attendees) were trained in airway management, intraosseous vascular access and how to use hemostatic dressings to support bleeding control.  Our Peripheral Ultrasound Course provided an opportunity for 520 nurses to further their training in ultrasound guided peripheral access. And, in both courses, nurses were taught the importance of choosing the right line for their patient based on patient acuity, disease state and treatment needs.

Through our Skills Workshop, we had over 600 nurses receive hands-on training for two our products: the EZ-IO® Intraosseous Device and our QuikClot® Hemostatic Dressing.

There were also opportunities to participate in more competition-style courses through a Sepsis Escape Room and a Sim-Wars Resuscitation competition. During the Sim-Wars, 16 teams of emergency nurses participated using several Teleflex products while performing lifesaving procedures and learning how to use intraosseous access during the resuscitation scenarios. These are important skills for emergency department nurses to learn and be confident doing.

Collectively, through all these educational opportunities we were able to provide product and procedural education to over 1,000 emergency nurses.

In addition, the Teleflex Anaesthesia and Emergency Medicine team displayed a booth at the conference, connecting with hundreds of nurses to provide additional product information and training.

Teleflex: What about for those nurses that couldn’t attend the conference or want more educational opportunities? Is there a way for them to get this level of education?

There are several ways that healthcare professionals can work with Teleflex for their training and education needs. For in person training, we use hands-on skills labs, procedural training, speaker series, and conferences to provide a holistic educational approach.  We also offer our Teleflex Academy online learning platform.

Teleflex Academy has an entire clinical education curriculum that is engaging and evidence-based to help teams enhance skills and improve the consistency of care for better clinical outcomes.  It is free to register and, once you have, you can get access to all of our hands-on classroom courses, webinars, e-learning and other online education tools.

Having a robust educational program is essential in supporting healthcare professionals to deliver better patient care. Between both our in-person and virtual platforms, in 2022, we educated more than 180,000 healthcare professionals on the safe and effective use of our products.