We provide patient care simulation and technical skills training in a safe, reproducible and supportive environment.
We emphasize teamwork— building communication and collaboration skills among our interprofessional and multidisciplinary provider teams.
Though the majority of our simulation training takes place in our simulation training facilities, we are increasingly providing in-situ simulation programs to health care teams on our clinical wards.
Patient Care Simulation
Patient care simulation provides individual learners the opportunity to apply their knowledge, skills, and abilities in diagnosis and case management in a controlled environment.
Learning objectives can also be tailored to team-based training and healthcare quality initiatives.
Our high-fidelity simulators are full-size mannequins that exhibit a full range of patient signs—they blink, they breathe, they speak, they have lung sounds and pulses, and can die. Monitors display their EKG, blood pressure, oxygen levels, body temperature, etc.
The simulators are programmed to respond appropriately to a participant's physical or pharmacological intervention and to environmental factors. Our simulation technicians can control the mannequin's clinical readings and can program enhancements like voices, coughs and wheezing.
We have a full range of high fidelity simulators—newborn, toddler, and both female and male adult mannequins—that allow us to simulate a variety of clinical scenarios from common diagnoses to high-risk, low-volume events. For example, participants can perform CPR, practice taking a history and physical, develop a diagnosis, administer medication and perform needed procedures.
Simulation scenarios can include clinical procedures such as:
- Bag-mask ventilation
- Intubation
- Defibrillation
- Chest tube placement
- Catheterization
The simulation scenario is monitored with audiovisual equipment in the control room and guided by a facilitator who gives immediate post-training feedback.
Technical Skills Training
Skills training allows learners to develop competency and confidence through routinely practicing and honing the cognitive and motor skills necessary to perform a wide range of clinical procedures.
Participants perform technical skills under the guidance and instruction of a facilitator, and receive immediate performance assessment and feedback.
Using simulated models of human body tissues, bench-top task training devices and computer-assisted procedural task training tools, we provide training for a variety of procedures, including:
- Basic and advanced laparoscopic techniques
- Upper and lower gastrointestinal endoscopy
- Open enteric anastomosis techniques
- Open vascular anastomosis techniques
- Intravenous and intraosseus access skills
- Arterial puncture skills
- Urinary and gastric catheter insertion
- Lumbar puncture skills
- Bedside non-invasive ultrasound use
- Advanced operative ultrasound use
- Wound closure skills
- Tube thoracostomy training
- Central venous catheter training
- Adult and pediatric airway management
We regularly train individuals and teams of up to 20 learners in our Goldberg Surgical Skills Lab with audiovisual capture monitoring available from the simulation center control room.
Surgical Skills Certification
The Goldberg Surgical Skills Lab is a recognized SAGES Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) Certification Center as well as SAGES Fundamentals of Endoscopic Surgery (FES) Certification Center.
In-situ Team Macrosimulations
We conduct systems-based macrosimulations to identify and correct potential latent safety threats in new hospital units, run emergency preparedness drills, and train to new and improved quality standards.
In-situ simulation encompasses team-based patient management, inter-professional communication, and systems-based practice.