The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) has invited SMRT and Maine Medical Center to present the latest trends in medical simulation center design at the ACHE annual conference in Chicago in March.
SMRT recently designed one of the most advanced medical simulation centers in the region for Maine Medical Center and its medical education partner Tufts University School of Medicine -The Hannaford Center for Safety, Innovation and Simulation.
Since opening, the center has served as a design model for medical schools and hospitals. Its facilities, designed and engineered to provide highly realistic working healthcare settings, are fully equipped to allow simulation of real world medical events. The skills lab incorporates robotic surgery equipment, a fully outfitted operating room and patient rooms - all featuring video interface. Bio-mimicking mannequins can be programmed to display acute medical conditions. Classrooms with full A/V and smart technology facilitate the all-important medical debriefing, while allowing distance learning, traditional instruction and guest lectures.
Medical Simulation Centers are fundamentally altering the education of healthcare professionals, while holding great promise to improve patient care and safety, clinical outcomes and risk mitigation - all without touching a single patient. Increasingly, accrediting bodies for nursing, medical and surgical specialties are advocating the incorporation of simulation based learning into the education of both current and future healthcare professionals as a means to standardize patient care and improve patient safety.
While medical simulation is primarily about clinical education, informed healthcare executives are recognizing extensive operational benefits beyond the core purpose. Simulation centers promote teamwork by improving real world communications, collaboration and crisis management, resulting in increased operational efficiencies. Advanced medical simulation centers go beyond training by integrating simulation into the healthcare system as a whole and extend simulation to such areas as: medical equipment evaluation preceding investment and beta testing of new processes and protocols such as the adoption of electronic medical records (EMR).