University Opens First Center for Patient Safety : Simulation facility will be used to provide courses for health care professionals at all levels of training.

“Despite our best intentions, we make mistakes,” Dr. Gallagher said. The intention of the center directors is to solve problems, not to point fingers or assign blame when a medical error occurs.

“The debriefing is really the heart of the simulation. It is where we try to make sense of what happened in the ICU or emergency room chaos.” Participants review recorded actions, discuss what happened, suggest what they would do differently in the future, and, if an error occurs, explain how they would inform a patient or family.

“At the end of the day, all this is about is changing the culture to help people to do the right thing,” Dr. Barach said.

The University of Miami added a 4-year curriculum on patient safety for medical students. The simulation challenges are designed to be relatively simple for students but are more complicated for experienced physicians, Dr. Barach said.

“The long-term goals are to get the center to be a vital part of the community,” he said.

“We want to get throughput from medical students, practicing physicians, and nurses. We also want patient safety to become part of the certification process.”