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July 31, 2007

Nursing

Just Breathe

Simulated patients will be used in new Smart Hospital
to prepare nursing students for real-world situations

Story by: Barbara Gelinas

The Shorthorn staff

The Shorthorn: Kyle Clothier

Tiffany Holmes manages the Smart Hospital that has simulated patients for training nursing students. This new 13,000-square-foot virtual hospital will house 23 simulated patients.

The patient is about to give birth. The nurse listens for the baby’s heartbeat through a stethoscope and checks the fetal monitor.

The patient is a medical manikin named Noelle at the university’s Smart Hospital, which will debut phase II on Aug. 24.

Phase II marks the opening of a 13,000-square-foot virtual hospital housing 23 simulated patients, Smart Hospital manager Tiffany Holmes said.

The Smart Hospital is one of only six Centers of Excellence designated by Laerdal, the largest maker of medical manikins worldwide. Only two of those centers are in nursing schools, Nursing Dean Elizabeth Poster said.

Holmes said the facility provides nearly 800 graduate and undergraduate nursing students the chance to learn in a controlled environment.

“It allows them to be more confident and competent when they move to a real hospital,” Holmes said.

Students learn a variety of procedures using manikins, including intubation, catheterization, inserting chest tubes, CPR and hooking patients up to ventilators. Faculty can program the virtual patients with a range of medical conditions for students to assess, simulation coordinator Mindi Anderson said.

“We want [the simulations] to mimic what they would see in real life,” Anderson said.

Smart Hospital students work with the simulated patients, including 10 SimMen, eight VitalSims and five SimBabies, Holmes said.

The 10 SimMen, made by Laerdal, produce heart, lung and bowel sounds and have chests that rise and fall to simulate breathing, Holmes said. The eight VitalSims, made by another manufacturer, don’t move their chests. Holmes also said the five SimBabies exhale carbon dioxide and that their lips turn blue if their carbon dioxide levels are too high.

In addition to the sim patients, students interact with 30 standardized patients played by actors. Professors assign roles to actors, who are trained to play patients with a range of illnesses and family members.

She said medical situations in a real hospital are random because it depends on who walks through the door. At the Smart Hospital, students have to deal with the same situations, she said.

Holmes said students can practice skills in a controlled environment.