Faculty members at Belmont University’s Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing are playing a vital role in the development of content that will be made available for use in an innovative new platform to deliver healthcare education through medical simulation.
SimCenter™, announced publicly in January, is a joint product of Nashville’s HealthStream (NASDAQ: HSTM), a leading provider of learning and research solutions for the healthcare industry and Laerdal Medical, a global leader in the provision of educational solutions for healthcare providers and educators. SimCenter is an innovative simulation management platform designed specifically for healthcare institutions to manage their simulation initiatives. It is comprised of a fully integrated system of software designed to work with advanced patient simulators used in medical education and made available through the Internet via software as a service (SaaS).
Belmont educators have been part of the initial content development team of leading medical simulation centers that have been creating scenarios for use within SimCenter. “This is a groundbreaking solution that will revolutionize the way simulation is performed in healthcare training,” said Beth Hallmark, Ph.D. RN, director of simulation at Belmont University.
“The Simulation Center faculty members from Belmont’s College of Health Sciences are representative of a growing group of thought leaders that are pioneering medical simulation,” said Robert A. Frist, Jr., president and chief executive officer, HealthStream. “We are delighted to have Belmont join our global network of leading educators offering best-in-class simulation content to the industry.”
The increased focus on patient safety has stimulated a booming interest in healthcare education through simulation and the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing is at the forefront of this movement. Healthcare simulation features life-like computerized mannequins that exhibit real patient symptoms and respond accordingly to treatment provided by caregivers, based on programmed scenarios. The use of simulation allows individuals preparing for healthcare professions to practice treatment and learn technique through simulation before treating actual patients. Simulation training significantly improves the readiness of healthcare professionals to practice medicine.
Students in the health sciences at Belmont have benefited from a wide array of simulation education since the Gordon E. Inman Center was completed in 2006. The College’s Simulation Center was expanded in 2010 with the completion of McWhorter Hall, enhancing the state-of-the-art technology used to train future nurses, pharmacists, physical and occupational therapists, and social workers.
The collaboration with HealthStream and Laerdal builds upon many Belmont connections with the healthcare industry in Middle Tennessee and extending both nationally and internationally. The College of Health Sciences partners regularly with companies and organizations on various projects and research studies, such as Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the American Heart Association, Nashville Health Care Council, Vanderbilt Medical Center, CVS Pharmacies, Tennessee Center for Nursing and Dispensary of Hope.
The initial developer network for SimCenter includes, in addition to Belmont University, the National League for Nursing, Winter Institute for Simulation Education and Research at University of Pittsburgh (WISER), University of South Carolina Simulation Center, Gordon Center for Research at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, SMART Hospital at University of Texas-Arlington, American Academy of Pediatrics, Oxford Brookes University in England, SAFER Simulation Center in Norway, The Danish Institute for Medical Simulation at Herlev Hospital in Denmark, Tubingen Centre for Patient Safety and Simulation (TuPASS) at the University Hospital of Tubingen in Germany, the French Society of Disaster Medicine and Edith Cowan University in Australia.
For more information on the Healthcare Simulation Center at Belmont University, contact the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing at 615-460-6107.
