Hospital Races to Learn Lessons of Ferrari Crew
Ferrari pit stop saves Alexander's life
Techniques developed from Formula One pit technicians were silently put in place after the operation on Alexander Barham By William Greaves 12:01AM BST 29 Aug 2006. As 18-month-old Alexander Barham was wheeled into intensive care, his survival depended on the expertise of the medical specialists all around him and, in no small part, on the split-second precision of the Ferrari Formula One motor racing team.
Prof Martin Elliott had just performed a three-hour hole-in-the-heart operation and watched in silence as three members of his surgical team began the practised routine of coupling a bewilderment of tubes to drug supply, ventilation and monitoring equipment above the young patient's head.
"This is perhaps the most critical stage of the operation and a year or two ago it would have been full of noise and movement as everyone, including me, got into the action, often getting in each other's way," he whispered. "But that was before our research work with Ferrari transformed the way we work."
It was after what he described as "a particularly bad day at the office" that Prof Elliott, the head of cardiac surgery at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, and his colleague, Dr Allan Goldman, in charge of paediatric cardiac intensive care, slumped into chairs in front of the television.
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[what's this]On the screen was a motor racing grand prix and, as they watched, the two men became aware of the similarities between the handover disciplines from theatre to intensive care and what they were seeing in the pit of a Formula One racing team.
From that moment began a collaboration between the leaders of Great Ormond Street's surgical and intensive care units, first with the McLaren F1 racing team and then with Ferrari's team chief Jan Todt, technical guru Ross Brawn and, in particular, race technical director Nigel Stepney.
They worked together at their home base in Modena, Italy, in the pits of the British Grand Prix and in the Great Ormond Street theatre and intensive care ward.
The major restructuring of the patient handover procedure, resulting directly from the input of the F1 pit technicians, will soon be described in two scientific publications.
"It is not too early to say that, when we look at the number of critical instances we encounter, they have reduced markedly since we introduced the modified training protocol developed from what we have learned from Formula 1," said Prof Elliott.
Related Links
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06318/738252-114.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1527497/Ferrari-pit-stop-saves-Alexanders-life.html
