RETAIN - Neonatal Resuscitation

Illustration of a baby with wires attached, and blue-gloved hands working on them

A Neonatal Resuscitation Training SimulatoN

Our goal was to make training more accessible to learners, starting with how teams worked together.

International Serious Play Awards - Bronze Medal »

The Challenge

Neonatal resuscitation today is taught through a simulation based training program. This method is cost & resource intensive, which reduced its availability to those that need it and adversely impacts skill acquisition and retention. Neonatal resuscitation is a halo event (high acuity, low occurrence). Like a fire drill, it doesn't happen very often, but it is critical when it happens.

Hospital room with several machines

"Neonatal resuscitation training today is cost & resource intensive, which reduced its availability to those that need it and adversely impacts skill acquisition and retention."


What We Did

Neonatal resuscitation is an extremely complicated process. As a design team, we needed to create a shared understand around this process in order to to design appropriately for it. Creating a board game enabled us to quickly act through the resuscitation process as a team, with objects to point to, use, and talk about.

RETAIN is a system designed to supplement existing resuscitation practices, and improve retention of neonatal resuscitation. One thing that became clear understand early on in our process, was that Neonatal Resuscitation is largely about communication. We created a Board Game and a Digital Simulator to allow people to practice neonatal resuscitation within a team and individually.

Group playing a board game around a table
Group playing the RETAIN board game.

RETAIN Tabletop Simulator - First Look

Board game laid out on a table, including cards showing tasks and events surrounding birth, equipment to attach to the newborn, and support staff to manage
RETAIN Board Game.
RETAIN digital simulator on a laptop screen, showing a text conversation about a birth on one side of the screen, and an illustrated baby with some medical statistics on the other
RETAIN Digital Simulator.

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