Opening of the Barga Simulation Laboratory (BaSiLabo), built as part of the multi-year Proximity Care project: it is the gymnasium where healthcare personnel in the Serchio Valley (Lucca) can ‘train’ in clinical procedures

Monday 9 December saw the inauguration at the San Francesco hospital in Barga, in the province of Lucca, of the modern advanced simulation centre Barga Simulation Laboratory (BaSiLabo), created as part of the multi-year project Proximity Care, proposed by the Sant'Anna School of Pisa, with the support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, together with the Region of Tuscany, the Azienda USL Toscana nord ovest, the Monasterio Foundation, 23 municipalities in the internal areas of the province of Lucca , and institutions of the third sector. 

The official presentation of this sort of gymnasium in which to ‘train’ health personnel, firstly from the Serchio Valley but then also from other areas, was attended by the mayor of Barga Caterina Campani, the vice-president of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca Raffaele Domenici, the director general of the Azienda USL Toscana nord ovest Maria Letizia Casani, Full Professor Michele Emdin and Full Professor Arianna Menciassi, as scientific project managers, both from the Sant'Anna School, together with Claudio Passino, Full Professor of Cardiology at the Sant'Anna School and cardiologist at the Monasterio Foundation. Other researchers from the Sant'Anna School and several operators from different sectors of the Azienda USL Toscana nord ovest, to whom the laboratory is reserved, also attended the opening.

Advanced simulation thus finds a new home at the Barga Simulation Laboratory (BaSiLabo), and the relevance of this facility, as all those present recalled, is fundamental, especially in an inland area such as the Serchio Valley, where the low number of cases requires constant training to ensure an appropriate practice.

‘This action, like all the others included in the great Proximity Care project, is the result,’ explained the mayor of Barga Caterina Campani , ‘of a 360-degree confrontation between all those involved. In particular, as mayors, we have followed the entire path and I am particularly pleased that two colleagues, the president of the Conference of Mayors of the Serchio Valley , Andrea Tagliasacchi , and the president of the Union of Municipalities of the Garfagnana, Raffaella Mariani, are also present at the inauguration. What is being set up in Barga is a centre of excellence with cutting-edge equipment and will make it possible to make training increasingly appropriate and qualitative, which, as we know, must be continuous and well-structured to give important results. The partners are of a high level: in addition to the Azienda USL Toscana nord ovest, we are talking about treatment and research centres such as the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and the Monasterio Foundation. We are trying, all together, to respond to the needs of the territory, and we are doing so with a project that proposes to overturn the paradigm of inland areas, which can truly become territories of experimentation and technological and organisational innovation, starting with prevention and the involvement of the resident population'.

‘The project,' stresses Michele Emdin, ’develops innovation on a clinical, organisational and technological level, involving a scientific community of more than 70 people, including researchers and technicians from the interdisciplinary Health Science Centre of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa, with a wide range of skills (from health management to medicine, from robotics to information technology, and including law) under the scientific responsibility of Sabina Nuti, Rector of the Sant'Anna School in Pisa, whom I thank for her trust and constant attention. Insisting on training is strategic for continuous improvement, thanks precisely to macro and micro simulation tools. The activities carried out in this area mainly concern the emergency and maternal and child emergency areas. This is a significant starting point, to be developed thanks to the various professionals involved (health professionals, engineers, and so on). I would therefore like to thank all those who have worked on the pathway'.

‘At BaSiLabo,’ Arianna Menciassi recalls, ’there is a simulation centre for both adults and the maternal and child sectors, which will be used for training but also for retraining, i.e. to consolidate skills acquired in emergency situations. Our working group started by designing a simulator for robotics, we then moved on to one for children (for various procedures such as intubation etc), trying to continually evolve the system. With today's inauguration we are taking a first important step towards the future'.

‘In Barga,’ adds Claudio Passino, ‘there are simulators that represent the top of the range. There are dummies for all situations related to childbirth, others with high fidelity for adults, and others for basic courses or specific ones such as training personnel on thoracic ultrasound. The infrastructure has been set up and there is already a network of trainers, now we have to make the best use of them by organising the courses’.

‘We have given our support to Proximity Care with conviction,’ explains the Vice-President of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, Raffaele Domenici , ’because of its great relevance: it is divided into 11 sub-projects and intends to promote the health of the population by integrating the care dimension with technological innovation, prevention and promotion, through the commitment and direct involvement of those who live and work in the inland areas of the province of Lucca. Thanks to these actions we can contribute to improving the conditions of care and life in the internal areas, making them more responsive to the needs of the population living there. Proximity and closeness to people are the key to interpreting the entire project, which aims at the direct involvement of the population, health professionals, local institutions and social organisations. Proximity care is therefore an interdisciplinary avant-garde project, as this new laboratory in Barga confirms: high-fidelity simulation centres like this one really represent the top of training for healthcare professionals, because training personnel on such sophisticated manikins is one of the prerequisites for guaranteeing increasingly appropriate care for citizens'.

‘The new laboratory,’ emphasises Asl director general Maria Letizia Casani , ’will be integrated with the already structured simulation training centre in Carrara, which carries out multidisciplinary and multi-professional training at both basic and advanced levels. Simulation is a valid strategy for teaching, learning and assessing clinical, technical and relational skills at various levels of education, helping to improve the quality of care and ensure patient safety. Indeed, the simulated and faithful reproduction of complex clinical situations in team dynamics ensures an optimal educational context for reducing cognitive errors attributable to the human factor. Among other things, there is ample evidence of how training with simulation enables a real improvement in the performance of the healthcare professionals involved. Over the past three years, a network of over 80 simulation facilitators has been trained and updated within our company. These are professionals who are able to create scenarios, manage pathways appropriately and conduct debriefings. The network of facilitators makes it possible to involve over a thousand healthcare professionals each year in training courses using this innovative method. Thanks therefore to those who made this project possible'.