The East Midlands Emergency Medicine Educational Hub: EM3

Nationally all emergency departments are facing similar difficulties:

1.  Growing service pressures and low staffing levels can de-prioritise educational opportunities
2. Patient overcrowding can lead to patient safety concerns. Good Situational Awareness and Human Factors training in all staff is needed to mitigate risk in these situations.
3. Potential poor reputation of working in the department among trainees is likely to impact negatively on recruitment and retention

Solution

East Midlands Emergency Medicine Educational Media (EM3) is a group leading multi-professional education at the Leicester Royal Infirmary Emergency Department. It was created in response to poor GMC and Health Education East Midlands (HEEM) reports in 2012 and initially consisted of a funded Post Graduate Education Lead, Administrator, Clinical Teachers and Education OOPEs who implemented educational programmes including:

• Mapped out bespoke teaching packages to curricula
• A 2 day induction programme
• Facilitated case based discussion clinics and protected shop floor teaching

These face-to-face initiatives have been supported by the EM3 website. This learner led approach to education encouraged individual goal setting and sharing of knowledge. EM3 is open access so all trainees, in and outside of the East Midlands, can benefit. It is one of the few Free Open Access Medical Education (#FOAMed) learning platforms in the UK that links curricula to teaching (http://www.em3.org.uk).

Outcome

Not only were HEEM satisfied with their progress they are now held up as 'gold standard' in the delivery of Emergency Medicine Education (having been shortlisted for a 2016 HEEM Excellence in Education Award) and highlighted by the GMC best practice website http://www.gmcuk.org/education/28243.asp?view . Recruitment has grown and the GMC survey feedback increasingly positive. This has benefited those on training programmes but there is also now a strong reputation delivering education to International Medical Graduates.

While EM3 is based in Leicester its outputs provide value for all departments in the East Midlands included persistently positive feedback despite huge service pressures. Staff feel supported with an appropriate time to learn and good engagement. Furthermore 15 national poster presentations were made by Leicester trainees at the National Emergency Medicine Conference (a record for any one unit) with the Emergency Medicine Trainees (trained across the East Midlands) winning the National Simulation Award

A positive HEEM visit in October 2015 affirmed sustained change which addressed all of the formal concerns from 2012 and EM3 were awarded a 2016 HSJ Value in Healthcare award for their work in Education and Training (video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrSfzZNEn4Q )