Last November, the Codimg team attended a congress which was jointly organised by SENEO (Spanish Society of Neonatology) and SEEN (Spanish Society of Neonatal Nursing) in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.

Knowledge was exchanged, medical advances were discussed, and above all, a great deal of passion for improving neonatal care was shown. 

But beyond presenting our video analysis tools, we wanted to demonstrate first-hand how technology is transforming medical education. 

We did so through a key concept - Cold Debriefing.

In this article, we’ll discuss the differences between hot and cold debriefing and go into more details about the congress and how we demonstrated the utility of Codimg as a cold debriefing tool.

So, let’s get started…

What Is Cold Debriefing and Why Is It Vital for Medical Simulation?

In traditional clinical simulation, debriefings usually take place immediately after the scenario has been completed. This is the very definition of a hot debriefing and, while this is important for capturing immediate emotions and supporting the participants, the adrenaline or stress of the moment can sometimes cloud objective analysis.

Cold debriefings, on the other hand, usually take place a few days or weeks after the event. 

Giving participants this temporal space tends to take the raw emotional reactions out of the reflection, allowing for a deeper, more clinical analysis of what went on during the simulation.

It also gives auditors the chance to collect and filter the most relevant data from the event, often in the form of audiovisual material, and compare and contrast it to a “gold standard” of performance which has been agreed on by contemporaries.

The key characteristics of a cold debriefing are as follows:

• Timing. Delayed for days or weeks after the event and often scheduled as a regular meeting.
• Purpose. Reflective learning, self and system improvement, quality assurance, providing closure for complex scenarios.
• Participants. Broader team, including everyone directly or indirectly involved in the scenario. Often held in participation with expert facilitators.
• Focus. In-depth analysis of clinical data, team performance, communication, and systems, as opposed to a hot debriefing which often involves immediate emotional support.

With this definition in mind, let’s take a closer look at why Codimg is the perfect tool for cold debriefings.

Case Study: Codimg and the Advanced Neonatal Simulation Workshop

During our workshop at the SENEO / SEEN congress, we held a workshop entitled Advanced Neonatal Simulation: Mastering Neonatal Care with Codimg and Cold Debriefing.

For this workshop, we exploited the flexibility of our online analysis tool, Codimg Hub.

The workflow we presented was the perfect example of interinstitutional collaboration and technological innovation. The main steps were as follows:

Preparation (The Scenario). In collaboration with Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona) and associated hospital, we pre-recorded a high-fidelity neonatal simulation case on their facilities.

Expert Analysis (Gold Standard). The video was uploaded to our cloud platform, Codimg Hub where a team of expert facilitators and qualified professionals analysed the case using a digital Codimg template. They tagged key parameters, strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. By doing this, a best-practice template was created.

The Interactive Congress Experience. In Las Palmas, we presented this prerecorded scenario to workshop attendees. But they did more than just watch it - they actively participated.

Easy Access to the Analysis. Thanks to Codimg Hub, all attendees were able to gain access to the Hub platform from their own devices (mobile phones, tablets, laptops).

Performing Their Own Analysis. Once on the platform, attendees analysed the prerecorded video using their own criteria, tagging the event using their own parameters.

The Moment of Learning. The truly revolutionary part came in the final stage when participants were able to directly compare their own analysis (cold analysis) with the expert analysis (Gold Standard) which was made available to them on the platform. This provided a true learning experience for all involved in the workshop.

Codimg Hub: An Engine for Collaborative Learning

This workshop demonstrated that Codimg Hub is much more than a video repository. It is a collaborative workspace that enables users to break down the walls of the simulation center. After all, the initial scenario took place in Tarragona, but the final point of learning was the Canary Islands.

Some of the benefits of using Codimg Hub include:

• Objectivity. By using digital templates, we can transform subjective observations into objective data.
• Accessibility. Codimg Hub enables dozens of professionals to analyse the same case simultaneously from their own devices.
• Collaboration. Healthcare professionals can share their findings, data and video clips directly from the Codimg Hub Team Channel - basically a private, secure social network for each institution.

There are many more benefits to using Codimg Hub - these are simply the main points thrown up by the SENEO / SEEN congress. For a full rundown of Hub’s capabilities, we recommend checking out our website for more information and contacting us for a free trial so you can take it for a test drive yourself.

Conclusion

Our experience at the SENEO / SEEN congress confirms that the future of healthcare training lies in flexible tools that support both immediate hot debriefing and a cooler, more reflective, post-event analysis.

We would like to sincerely thank Universitat Rovira i Virgili for their collaboration, as well as all the attendees who took up challenge of analysing an event with Codimg. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and we believe this to be an effective demonstration of how Codimg is redefining the rules of clinical simulation and debriefing.

If you have any questions about cold debriefing, objective analysis or technological innovation in healthcare, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us. We’d be happy to point you in the right direction.

Likewise, if you are interested in trialing Codimg at your institution, we’d love to discuss your needs and set you up with a no-obligation free trial today.

Until then…

Thanks for reading.