The resourceful F. Marie Hall SimLife Center at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) in Lubbock, Texas opened in September 2010. This clinical simulation center allows students in the nursing, medicine, and allied health professions to acquire and practice a full range of skills on manikins, from drawing blood and inserting urinary catheters to delivering babies.

Sharon Decker, Center Director, observes, “Learning in a simulated environment allows students to make mistakes without the need for intervention by faculty to prevent patient harm. Research has demonstrated that simulation provides an effective method of teaching while promoting learner satisfaction and self-competence.” Learners at TTUHSC can walk away from this simulated experience confident in their abilities and skills when dealing with live patients and unanticipated medical events. 

TTUHSC doesn’t plan on using the clinical simulation facility for students alone. According to Ted Mitchell, president, TTUHSC plans to use this technology for continued education for community nurses and physicians as well as faculty. “Part of our educational mission is to make sure we have as much interdisciplinary teamwork as we can,” remarks Mitchell, “and this is a great tool for doing that.”

One of the major influences that drove TTUHSC to choose Education Management Solutions (EMS) as their vendor was the ability to pull scenarios together and create a video clip of learners performing skills. This, they said, was not offered by other vendors. These clips will be important when recent graduates are searching for employment and they have visual proof of their demonstrated clinical capabilities.

Clinical simulation is the future. With many options on the horizon, TTUHSC has a plan to improve the SimLife Center by expanding the services currently offered to its customers; developing a program of educational and certification courses; and expanding the current program of research related to clinical simulation to explore transfer and sustainability of skills attainment. In this ever progressing era of technology, faculty has high hopes for goals they deem achievable. 

Register now for the 2nd Annual "Inside The Simulation Studio" Conference!  A day of networking, teaching and learning about the "art of human simulations."

When and Where
- May 14 - Villanova University, College of Nursing, Villanova / Philadelphia
- May 17 - NYIT Auditorium on Broadway, Manhattan
- June 18 - Samuel Merritt University, Oakland / San Francisco

Who should attend  - SPs, SP educators, mannequin-based educators, psychotherapists, lawyers and university educators. Join us for a day to network, discuss and demonstrate the diversity of human simulation.

ISS 2012 Theme - "The Art of Human Simulation: Innovative Takes on an Emerging Field." What is "the art of human simulation?" Beyond technology, it is where your expertise and experience combine with self-expression. Performing a role, preparing SPs, fiction contracting, moulaging, debriefing learners. Making a simulation look and feel like reality.

To Register
If you have not yet registered - Email your name, job title(s), where you work and which conference(s) you would like to attend to: register.simstudio@gmail.com

ISS 2012 Scheduled Presentations
- Children as Standardized Patients
- Psychologists simulating families to engender empathy
- Standardized Patient challenges
- Legal simulations
- Hybrid simulations
- Teamwork through simulations
- Simulations to prepare teachers in higher education
- Global health simulations
And more!

Follow The Simulation Studio blog - discover the diversity of simulation work - Click here: http://simulationstudio.org

University of Hawaii -Manoa debuts the most modern nursing simulation center in the U.S., and the beneficiaries will be the people of Hawaii.

The UH Translational Health Science Simulation Center (THSSC) is the only simulation center of its kind in Hawaii. It is an innovative partnership between the University of Hawaii at Manoa Nursing, HMSA Foundation, Hawaii Pacific Health, The Queen’s Medical Center, and Kaiser Permanente Hawai'i.

A cutting edge, $8 million teaching facility that opens in Webster Hall this week provides UH nursing students with robotic patients that simulate medical procedure, from childbirth to emergency surgery, redefining world-class and making Manoa the Nursing Capital of The Pacific.

What appears as actual hospital or emergency room scenarios are part of a cutting edge center of learning that puts Hawaii at the forefront of simulated health care education. As a new year begins, UH gives birth to a world-class facility for nursing students and health care providers.

“Our simulation center was designed after Hawaii’s leading health care agencies and best practices in nursing education,” says Lorrie Wong, Ph.D., associate professor and director of THSSC.

There are seven simulation rooms with high-fidelity manikins (medical mannequins) playing the part of patients. In these fully equipped rooms, including professional medical apparatus, are staged emergency/trauma cases, childbirth labor and delivery, adult intensive care, neonatal intensive care, pediatric intensive care and a homecare setting.

There also is an eight-bed inpatient unit and adjacent two-bed unit with bedside electronic health records and mid-fidelity manikins. Three outpatient rooms, three research labs, a high-tech computerization and audio-visual control room, and four debriefing rooms complete the structure. The state-of-the-art facility can accommodate up to 190 people.

Read more >> http://www.midweek.com/content/story/midweek_coverstory/UH_nursing_simulation_center/

Take a tour of this facility http://thssc.nursing.hawaii.edu/content/virtual-tour-and-interactive-map

By Linda Wilson, PhD, RN, CPAN, CAPA, BC, CNE, associate clinical professor and assistant dean for special projects, and Leland Rockstraw, PhD, RN, associate clinical professor and assistant dean for simulation, clinical and technology academic operations, CNHP, Drexel University - College of Nursing and Health Professions. 2011 Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

Human simulation is changing the face of clinical education in the health professions. Its use has expanded beyond medical school to encompass nursing and mental health clinical education. This comprehensive guide to establishing and managing a human simulation lab has been written by nationally acclaimed simulation experts and is geared for undergraduate, graduate, and professional settings.

The text takes the reader step-by-step through the process of planning, organizing, implementing, and maintaining a simulation lab. It describes the required technology, how to train standardized patients, how to implement a simulation, evaluation and analysis of the simulation experience, and how to develop a business plan. The guide details simulation in undergraduate and graduate nursing programs, physician's assistant programs, and mental health education, as well as the use of simulation with critically ill patients, and in perioperative, perianasthesia, women's health, and rehabilitation science settings.

Key Features:

• Offers a blueprint for developing, implementing, and managing a human simulation lab
• Details use of simulation in numerous nursing and mental health settings along with case studies
• Provides tools for evaluation and analysis of the simulation experience
• Presents undergraduate and graduate nursing simulation scenarios and pedagogical strategies
• Discusses simulation training and required technology
• Includes templates for writing cases for BSN and MSN levels

Foundations in Newborn Care: Neonatal Care at the Moment of Birth: Using Simulation to Prepare the Nurse
By Deborah A. Raines PhD, RN, ANEF
Linda Ikuta
Advances in Neonatal Care, 2010

 Abstract 

Successful transition of the neonate from the intrauterine environment to
the extrauterine world is a complex and unique process. The assessments
and interventions of the nurse during these precious moments following
birthhave a dramatic impact on the well-being of the neonate. This article
reports on the development and implementation of a nursing situation
simulation focused on educating nurses for this role. Clinical simulation
has been shown to increase confidence and competence of nurses. Use
of simulation allows nurses to gain experience without placing the
patient at risk.

Read the entire article courtesy of NursingCenter.com