CAE Healthcare HPSN 2013 Delivers Powerful Messages & Sneak Peeks

This past week I attended the 17th CAE Healthcare HPSN event, which took place for the first time on the west coast in downtown San Francisco. This event was attended by over 1,000 simulation champions from around the world, and was the largest vendor meeting I have ever been to. I was invited by CAE to present on three topics: “Generating Revenue Through External Contracts”, “Hollywood Secrets for Increasing Realism in Your Sim Lab” and “Sim Techs – The Difference Between Success and Failure for Your Sim Program”.

I had a chance to talk with Colin M. Preis, Vice President of Global Sales & Marketing at CAE Healthcare about the event, the amazing keynote presentation from Retired Lead Blue Angels Pilot John Foley (shown above), a powerful call by CAE Healthcare CEO Mike Bernstein, and check out the teaser model of a new child birthing simulator!

Retired Navy Blue Angels Pilot John Foley provided a powerful two hour address on the power of vision, executive and debriefing to the audience of medical simulation champions. John informed the audience of the kind of commitment to excellence it took to be the .01% of the top 1% of an organization, trusting their fellow pilots to fly within 18″ of one another going over 400 knots! What was fantastic to see was recorded  footage of the debrief sessions John participated in after each and every Blue Angels demonstration back in the early 90s. During these sessions, which usually lasted longer than the actual event, John and his fellow pilots would watch VHS recorded tape of their entire performance and critique one another, themselves and their performances – just as we do now 20 years later at the end of our healthcare simulations.  A powerful reminder about the process the World Famous Blue Angels undergo, and what we as healthcare providers must also commit to in-order to achieve our own best.  You can learn all about John and his companies at http://johnfoleyinc.com/

John was introduced by CAE Healthcare CEO Mike Bernstein, who took the opportunity not to demonstrate products but rather make a powerful call. Mike suggested it was time to engage the government to learn from the success of the aviation industry and create a regulatory body for healthcare, similar to the NTSB. This is something that should be strongly considered by the medical simulation community. To that end, CAE Healthcare has reached out to competitors to start such a conversation and opened an office in Washington DC to begin lobbying efforts.

Lastly, we got a sneak peek of a new child birthing manikin to be released before IMSH 2014, also taking place in San Francisco. I had a chance to go behind closed doors to see various components of the new system and I am already impressed with the unique innovations coming from a company with decades of simulation experience in aviation: CAE.

To learn more about the HPSN event check out the CAE Healthcare website!