Innovative and Comprehensive Approach to Education
The need for highly-skilled, deeply compassionate caregivers has never been more evident than it is today. According to a recent study by McKinsey & Company, the United States may have a drastic shortage of nurses by 2025 as Baby Boomers age, and the need for health care significantly increases. It is projected that there will be between 200,000 to 450,000 fewer registered nurses.
To ensure that our Dignity Health Bay Area community continues to have access to the best nurses and clinical staff, Sequoia Hospital Foundation is raising funds for a state-of-the-art Simulation Learning Center that will provide training for nurses, nursing assistants, and other clinical staff. This training center will provide the ability to mirror a clinical experience representing a typical hospital setting, using state-of-the-art manikins so a clinician can experience an exact replica of working conditions with patients.
How it Works
The simulation learning center is a suite of rooms representing a typical hospital setting where students and clinicians can experience an exact replica of working conditions with patients. The wireless simulator operates by creating its own encrypted Wi-Fi network. The manikin acts as the “access point” and two laptops, one to operate the manikin and the other as the patient vital-signs monitor, connects to the Wi-Fi signal the manikin is creating.
The manikin runs pneumatically with a compressor that moves the manikin’s chest, simulating spontaneous breathing. The simulators manifest vital signs, clinical signs and symptoms. This also operates the manikin’s airway features and creates simulated problems such as clenched jaw, tongue swelling, vocal cord closing, etc.
Training Across Disciplines:
- Emergency Care
- Labor and Delivery
- Intensive and Medical-Surgical Care
Simulators fulfill educational objectives across clinical disciplines. With conversational speech and lifelike motor movement, simulators are designed to support the broadest selection of real mechanical ventilators, patient monitors and sensors and defibrillators, preparing students for a real world experience in the safety of a training environment. Learners gain realistic experience performing tasks that match their current state of learning without the risk of potential patient harm. The automated data reports can quickly pinpoint learners who are struggling. Patient simulators provide feedback to a practitioner’s interventions by way of hemodynamic, objective and subjective responses. They possess the ability to interact with the learner in a lifelike setting with physiological human responses.
Why it's Important
Simulation-based education has gained widespread recognition within the field of health care as a powerful tool for reinforcing clinical knowledge, improving team communication and teaching decision-making skills. Simulation can be used not only to teach clinical skills, but also teamwork and communication. Offering clinicians an opportunity to respond to real-world scenarios within a simulation, offers the best preparation for the complex settings they will be faced with in their professional lives.
The mastery of skills is essential to providing the best possible treatments for patients. For example, for many respiratory therapists and technicians, skills training usually takes place at the bedside on a real patient. Unfortunately, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals grappled with the shortage of health care personnel trained to operate ventilators.