PRONTO is:
Inter-Professional: PRONTO Communicates for Team Success
This is true team training – nurses, obstetricians, midwives, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, general medicine doctors, and technicians all work together and, therefore, all train together. Researched communication strategies from Team STEPPS facilitate teamwork, create team cohesion and increase efficiency.
Sustainable: PRONTO was Built to Last
Local training brigades make PRONTO sustainable and relevant. Follow-up training manuals remain in the clinical settings to ensure continuity. Materials are locally available and inexpensive.
Low-Tech: PartoPantsTM are Inexpensive and Easy to Make
A modified pair of recycled surgical scrub pants, PartoPantsTM, are worn by an actress who simulates a birth, a hemorrhage or an eclamptic seizure.
Highly Realistic: PRONTO gets your Heart Pounding
Simulations recreate the working environment allowing participants to fully immerse themselves in the scenario and work though problems as they would in a real emergency. The tactile, visual and auditory cues provide the scenario with psychological realism and allow the scenario to unfold in response to these cues and actions.
Humanized Birth: PRONTO Listens to Women
Promotes humanized birth through the practice of therapeutic communication with patients and their families.
In-Situ: PRONTO is on Location
Training takes place in the participants’ own work environment. It emphasizes the best use of available resources and identifies systems problems unique to the setting.
Objective Driven: PRONTO is Purposeful
All scenarios, activities and skills stations are based on cognitive, technical and behavioral objectives.
Evidence Based Medicine: PRONTO is Up-to-Date
Algorithms and objectives are based on the latest research, promoting Active Management of the Third Stage of Labor (AMTSL), magnesium sulfate for severe preeclampsia, basic life support, neonatal resuscitation, delayed cord clamping, among other practices and the cessation of harmful practices like the routine use of episiotomy, postpartum manual uterine exploration, and fundal pressure.
Debriefing: PRONTO Participants Teach Each Other
Scenario debriefing is based on techniques studied and established by the simulation community. Debriefs are participant generated, objective based and constructive.
The curriculum was designed to be inter-professional, based on the latest evidence-based thinking regarding team training and communication (
The challenge was to create a low-cost simulator to use in the scenarios. PartoPantsTM were the answer. PartoPantsTM are a modified a pair of surgical scrub pants worn by an actress (simulated patient).
PRONTO is at its core a sustainable local program. None of the work can be done without the dedication of the National Institute of Public Health (ISNP) PRONTO support team, State Training Brigades, the representatives from funding/government agencies, or the numerous volunteers who have generously given of their time and energy.
