TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The region's first Pediatric Clinical Simulation Unit is now open at Tucson Medical Center (TMC) where health care professionals can improve individual and team performance in a safe space.
It includes five state-of-the-art simulators; one newborn, one 23-week-old premature baby, one teenager, and two 7-year-olds.
RNPHD Kara Snyder, TMC Associate Chief Nursing Officer, says it allows nurses and the medical team to practice real life situations.
“So a clinician can make a decision about the care and treatment of that patient and the mannequin is programmed to respond in a way that would either give that learner positive reinforcement that they made the right decision or maybe they would take a turn for the worse and the learner would say wait, 'I have to learn or do something differently,'" Snyder explained.
The simulators can talk, show symptoms by changing colors, and even stop breathing, providing challenges for the clinicians.
"So the mannequins will react in real time and give them cues of how to course correct those interventions," Snyder said.
The difference from what was used before is the amount of mannequins and the lack of technology.
"Previously we had just a few mannequins so it was one patient at a time. Where now we're simulating a real life day in the life of a nurse, a doctor, a respiratory therapist at TMC and how they care for multiple patients at once and across the age span," Snyder said.
The Pediatric Simulation Unit will be embedded in part of the education and training program.
Luis Murillo, TMC Clinical Educator, says this unit is very beneficial to the team.
"It has made such a positive impact for our nurses and medical team because they get to practice in a safe environment and when those situations happen in real life, we're ready to go," Murillo said.
Each day will not be the same. The health care professionals will come in and have to assess the patient and determine what is wrong and how to provide treatment.
"This patient is septic right now, meaning that he’s having an infection that has spread throughout his body," Murillo explained about the 7-year-old mannequin.
The complications could range from respiratory distress, infections, cardiac arrest, jaundice, how to care for newborn and premature babies, and beyond.
"When a baby is born, if the baby is flaccid and not breathing, heart rate low, then we're gonna go ahead and bring this baby over and try to resuscitate this baby," explains RNC Deb Derck.
The unit came with a price tag of about $600,000 and it took a year to come to fruition with the help of the Tucson Centurions.
Snyder says this unit was vital so children could get the best care possible in Tucson.
"Children across the lifespan can have so many different ailments, and for us to be the highest, most competent level of pediatric care, we need to be able to simulate any and all of those conditions and be ready for anything," Snyder said. "And so for us, taking care of patients across the lifespan, from prematurity up through the teenage years, and being ready for whatever our community needs is our why. And partnering with the Centurions, they really helped to accelerate bringing that desire to life here."
The Pediatric Clinical Simulation Unit is located in the TMC Health Atrium Building.
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