Newly opened simulation center at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Advocate Children's Hospital is largest to date

On July 30, Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Advocate Children's Hospital opened a new, state-of-the-art Simulation Center on the Park Ridge medical campus that is changing the way physicians and team members train and learn.

The Simulation Center features multiple simulation rooms set to mimic various medical settings, such as birthing suites, intensive care units and surgical settings. The center officially opened on Monday with a ribbon cutting and day-long open house to give team members an opportunity to tour the center.

"We are dedicated to providing our team members and clinicians state-of-the-art facilities like the Simulation Center where they receive the highest quality training," said Dominica Tallarico, executive vice president for the Central Chicagoland Region. "The addition of this center will help our teams learn new skills, hone familiar ones and provide the communities that we are so privileged to serve with the safest and highest quality care possible."

At 8,000 square feet, the Simulation Center on the Park Ridge campus is Advocate's largest center and features multiple simulation rooms set to mimic various medical settings such as birthing suites, intensive care units and surgical settings.

Divided by a two-way glass window, each simulation room has its own control rooms where facilitators and simulation operators can observe and control cameras, simulators, code buttons, nurse call systems and overhead announcements.

After simulations are complete, the center is equipped with debriefing rooms where learners can discuss their simulation case. As a result, team members can enhance their knowledge and skills while providing valuable feedback to the hospital about how to make processes more efficient and better serve the needs of patients and teams across the Park Ridge campus.

New, life-saving processes have been adopted because of lessons learned in the Simulation Centers across Advocate.

"Working in a hospital setting can often be unpredictable," says Advocate Children's Hospital President Mike Farrell. "The Simulation Center allows our clinicians and associates to learn a variety of skills for multiple settings and situations and prepare for high-risk, low frequency situations."

While every situation is very real, the patients are not. They are high-fidelity simulators, able to blink, move their arms, turn blue and have pulses. Their chests even rise and fall, and they have normal and abnormal cardiac rhythms. There will be eight simulators available that mimic patients from birth to end of life. Simulators include a premature babe, newborn baby, 9-month-old baby, 5-year-old child, and various adult simulators - including one that gives birth.

All team members, both clinical and non-clinical, will have the opportunity to use the center by setting up a consultation with the Simulation team. The team will work to develop simulation experiences to address goals and objectives to meet the specific needs of the organization.

"The center is very versatile and can be utilized for both clinical and non-clinical team members," said Kelley Sava, Director of Advocate Health Care's Simulation Education Program. "For example, the team developed a simulation program for environmental services team members where they learned how to effectively clean a room while also conversing with a patient. The center can, of course, also be used for clinical purposes such as team training and complex skills training such as suture placement and difficult intubations. The goal of the Simulation Center is continuous with Advocate's dedication to help improve patient safety by focusing on teamwork, communication and clinical judgement."

Advocate is in the process of building Simulation Centers at each of its sites. In addition to the opening at Advocate Lutheran General and Advocate Children's Hospital in Park Ridge, centers at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital and Advocate Sherman Hospital will open by the end of the year, with more on the way in 2019. The first center to open was at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in 2016.

These centers are part of Advocate Health Care's Strategic Plan to improve patient safety and achieve zero events of preventable patient harm by 2020. Advocate is taking a unique approach to its Simulation Program by building Simulation Centers at each of its sites, giving associates access to high-quality training right at their fingertips.