How a Children's Hospital Borrowed From the Blue Angels

Studer Family Children's Hospital has built a program it calls SEAL, short for Simulating Emergency Action for Life, to prepare physicians, nurses and other staff for high-risk, low-frequency emergencies. The idea, according to Becker's Hospital Review, draws directly from how elite performers like the Blue Angels and military teams train: rehearse rare, high-stakes scenarios so relentlessly that the response becomes automatic.

Hospital President Jason Foland, MD, has leaned on that philosophy because the most dangerous moments in pediatric care are often the ones clinicians rarely see. A team can go months without facing a specific crisis, then have only seconds to act correctly. Simulation closes that gap by turning uncommon events into practiced routines and by exposing breakdowns in communication before a real patient is on the table.

The approach reflects a broader shift in hospital safety toward high-reliability principles borrowed from aviation and the military, where checklists, debriefs and repetition are treated as core to keeping people alive.