San Marcos — Central Texas Medical Center (CTMC) has introduced Laerdal’s SimMan 3G, a high fidelity mannequin that simulates a variety of medical conditions for health care training.
The SimMan 3G is capable of simulating varying degrees of seizures and convulsions, eye signs, secretions, wound models which bleed from both arterial and venous vessels, real-time CPR feedback and an advanced Drug Recognition System that allows the administration of drugs and the appropriate physiological responses.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center’s Anita Thigpen Perry School of Nursing received a $250,000 grant from the RGK Foundation to establish a mobile simulation education program in conjunction with the F. Marie Hall SimLife Center.
The program delivers simulation technology, taught by expert faculty, to nursing students, nurses, clinics and hospitals throughout Texas despite geographic distance and budgetary restrictions.
“Studies have shown that integrating simulation education with traditional teaching methods increases patient safety and competency of health care professionals,” said Sharon Decker, Ph.D., R.N., ANEF, director of Clinical Simulations for the F. Marie Hall SimLife Center and Covenant Health System Endowed Chair in Simulation and Nursing Education.
The mobile simulation program will allow rural interdisciplinary health care professionals to receive competency evaluations and continuing education and training opportunities to which they otherwise would not have access, CTMC officials said.
The program is designed to also help decrease overcrowding in clinical sites and increase nursing student enrollment by supplementing clinical training with clinical simulation.
