Advocate adds simulation center in Park Ridge

Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Advocate Children's Hospital are adding a new, state-of-the-art simulation center to 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. Hospital officials will officially open the center on July 30.

"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 center on the Park Ridge campus is Advocate's largest center. 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, lifesaving 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 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, nine-month-old baby, five-year-old child, and various adult simulators -including one that gives birth.

Advocate is in the process of building simulation centers at each of its sites. 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.