Eisenhower Health physicians, nurses and clinical staff can now practice and sharpen their skills in its new John Stauffer Center for Innovation in Learning — the area’s most advanced simulation center. Thanks to the generous philanthropy of the John Stauffer Charitable Trust and The Thomas and Elizabeth Grainger Family, this innovative training center includes ICU, OBGYN/NICU, medical/surgical, and emergency rooms, each fully equipped with the world’s most advanced patient simulator manikins by Gaumard.
The Gaumard simulators are highly sophisticated, providing a very lifelike experience that allows Eisenhower’s clinical staff, including physicians, residents, nurses, respiratory therapists, and others, to learn high-risk procedures in a low-risk environment. “It’s about sharpening essential critical thinking skills,” says Solomon Sebt, MD, Medical Director of the John Stauffer Center for Innovation in Learning, Eisenhower Health. “The manikins can make voice commands, perform functions that simulate real-life emergent medical conditions, sweat, bleed, cry, urinate, and use artificial intelligence to converse with learners in real-time using genuine responses.”
The facilitators can manipulate the manikins to simulate different heart tones, lung and bowel sounds, and multiple airway features, including intubation and ventilation, cricothyrotomy, tracheostomy care, suctioning, chest tube insertion, peripheral IVs, medication administration, and urinary catheter insertion. From the control room, specially-trained facilitators can observe clinicians through a one-way window, giving them a direct view while they control bedside monitors and simulator responses.
An advanced audio/visual recording system captures audio, video, annotations, patient monitors, and simulator data, allowing participants and facilitators to review the footage to identify successes and opportunities for improvement. The lab also includes a debrief area for post-simulation sessions, as well as virtual conference rooms for long-distance hybrid simulation collaborations.
In addition to the simulation labs, the Center includes a comprehensive education area for physicians and other frontline team members to join together for scenario-based training. The Center is also equipped with state-of-the-art technology and equipment to enhance the learning experience.
“The new John Stauffer Center for Innovation in Learning can create fully immersive scenarios around any emergent event, like a code blue, or any other area/scenario in which a participant needs critical training,” says Dr. Sebt. “We want these simulations to mimic how it is on a hospital unit, so participants can receive the best training possible, and our patients continue to receive the safest, highest standard of care.”
