Patients with transmissible infections must be transported safely - for their own safety and for the safety of medical staff and the general public. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has once again impressively demonstrated this.
TROPICSAFE, an association of five European institutions under the leadership of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM) and in cooperation with the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), has developed an e-learning platform for medical personnel, nursing staff and transport professionals on this topic.
The training platform topicsafetraining.com is free of charge and the pilot version is now available. Among other things, participants can learn how to use personal protective equipment (PPE) correctly when transporting people with infectious diseases. The training program also covers the basics of how infections are transmitted, the corresponding protective measures required and behavioral patterns to reduce the risk of infection. In addition to everyday infectious diseases such as influenza, COVID-19-specific aspects will also be covered, as well as infection protection transports for highly pathogenic pathogens such as Ebola. The courses are currently available in four languages: English, Spanish, German and Latvian.
The project was developed by experts of various departments to support national and international health care missions with patient transport. They all know the health sector in their countries of origin and represent the interests of the workforce, health professionals and trainers. The target group of the e-learning courses are paramedics, ambulance drivers, private companies, professional associations in medical transport, training personnel, public and private training centers and health care professionals.
TROPICSAFE was co-financed by the ERASMUS+ program of the European Union over 24 months and developed by five European institutions under the leadership of BNITM and UKE.
Further information and access to the pilot version of the training can be found here. The final version will go online by the end of the year.
