Approximately, 10-20% (13 to 26 million) of infants worldwide require neonatal resuscitation at birth. Unfortunately, ~1 million of these infants die annually worldwide at birth during neonatal resuscitation. Not following the correct resuscitation algorithm is responsible for approximately 60-70% of these deaths. Therefore, adequate training in how to provide neonatal resuscitation is vital to reduce mortality and improve the health of these infants.

The current neonatal resuscitation training uses a mannequin, specialized equipment and instructors trained in simulation education. This approach of training neonatal resuscitation is time and cost intensive and not routinely offered in any health-care facilities in Canada or around the world. Furthermore, refresher training sessions are necessary for skill retention (minimum every 6 months), which are further cost-prohibitive. In addition, rural areas struggle with a lack of instructors and therefore might be not able to provide any training at all or only on a very infrequent basic. However, if Healthcare Providers are proper trained in neonatal resuscitation the number of deaths due to not following the correct resuscitation algorithm would be significantly reduced.

RETAIN Labs Medical Inc. has developed the RETAIN – REsuscitation TrAINing for Healthcare Providers, a system which combines low-cost resuscitation simulators (a computer game and a board game).

The RETAIN Board game is a tabletop simulator, where learners select one of 50 simulation scenarios of varying difficulty. Using the appropriate equipment pieces, monitors, and actions, learners practice safely stabilizing the simulated newborn baby in distress. Feedback (i.e., the baby’s clinical status) guides decision-making, where correct adherence to NRP guidelines results in the baby’s health eventually stabilizing and inappropriate or incorrectly-ordered tasks cause the baby’s health to decline.

The RETAIN Computer game is a digital simulator, where learners select one of 20 simulation scenarios of varying difficulty. Using the mouse to attach equipment to a newborn baby with monitors beeping for learners to practice safely stabilizing the simulated newborn baby in distress.