Overview

The CERTAIN: Global Critical Care and Emergency Medicine Outreach Program at Mayo Clinic improves clinical care delivery worldwide through equitable, scalable and evidence-based education, simulation and care team coaching.

We believe that access to high-quality training should not be limited by geography or resources. Our global initiatives are delivered via asynchronous learning modules, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled simulations and case-based coaching. They empower intensive care and emergency medicine team members — including clinicians, nurses, technicians, administrators and others — to make timely, lifesaving decisions at the bedside. We are creating a global learning community that transforms how acute care is delivered, thereby improving outcomes for patients, empowering families and sustaining the people on the front lines of healthcare.

Healthcare organizations in all levels of resource settings face significant pressure to provide high-quality critical care and emergency medicine. They often struggle with limited staffing and inconsistent training while facing high patient volumes and complex cases. Clinicians must make rapid high-stakes decisions, often in moments of crisis. Our program addresses these challenges by offering scalable, evidence-based and team-based approaches that strengthen clinical skills, standardize practice and improve team communication. We help build strong systems that deliver safe, high-quality care even under resource constraints, while always putting the needs of the patient first.

Our program was born out of the Checklist for Early Recognition and Treatment of Acute Illness and Injury (CERTAIN) study, a large, international quality-improvement study. We have since developed the CERTAIN framework into an award-winning, longitudinal virtual simulation program that has trained thousands of clinicians worldwide. From U.S. community hospitals navigating the COVID-19 pandemic to war-torn Ukraine, and in low-resource areas around the world, research stemming from the CERTAIN study has empowered healthcare teams to deliver safer, more effective and compassionate care. Today, we continue to build on that work.

Related publications

Read selected scholarly publications about the program's proven successes around the world.

• Zec S, Zorko Garbajs N, Dong Y, Gajic O, Kordik C, Harmon L, Bogojevic M, Singh R, Sun Y, Bansal V, Vu L, Cawcutt K, Litell JM, Redmond S, Fitzpatrick E, Kooda KJ, Biehl M, Dangayach NS, Kaul V, Chae JM, Leppin A, Siuba M, Kashyap R, Walkey AJ, Niven AS. "Implementation of a Virtual Interprofessional ICU Learning Collaborative: Successes, Challenges, and Initial Reactions From the Structured Team-Based Optimal Patient-Centered Care for Virus COVID-19 Collaborators." Critical Care Explorations. 2023.
• Kovacevic P, Meyer FJ, Gajic O. "Successful Implementation of Modern Critical Care in the Low-Resources Country Bosnia And Herzegovina: Single-Center Experience." Medizinische Klinik — Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin. 2022.
• Vukoja M, Dong Y, Adhikari NKJ, Schultz MJ, Arabi YM, Martin-Loeches I, Hache M, Gavrilovic S, Kashyap R, Gajic O, Checklist for Early Recognition and Treatment of Acute Illness and Injury (CERTAIN) Investigators of the SCCM Discovery Network. "Checklist for Early Recognition and Treatment of Acute Illness and Injury: An Exploratory Multicenter International Quality-Improvement Study in the ICUs With Variable Resources." Critical Care Medicine. 2021.