Sept. 23, 2003

High-tech simulator improves patient care
by future doctors, nurses

Nowhere is that more apparent than at the Landsbaum Center for Health Education where Wabash Valley nursing and medical students are now getting valuable hands-on medical experience on a state-of-the-art simulator that realistically mimics human responses.

The Human Patient Simulator - or HPS for short - blinks, breathes, has a heartbeat and pulse and the capability to speak. Students are able to perform CPR, administer intravenous medications, and perform a variety of other procedures. The full-size plastic mannequin, filled with sensors and wires connected to a bank of computers and machines, can be configured either as a male or female patient.

Florida-based Medical Education Technologies, Inc. has placed more than 160 HPS simulators in service but only two are in Indiana - at the Landsbaum Center for Health Education in Terre Haute and at the Indiana University Anesthesia Simulator Lab in Indianapolis. HPS simulators are not used not only to train medical, nursing and health sciences students. The Army uses the simulators in the field to train medics.

“(HPS) is a combination of very complex software and hardware that simulates the physiology that occurs in a human being under certain given circumstances -- from a normal person to whom you’re just giving medications to a person who has been involved in a car accident, a person who’s having a heart attack, a person who’s had a stroke or a collapsed lung,” said Dr. Paul Daluga, associate director of Union Hospital’s family practice residency program.

Two people are needed to run the simulator - a clinician and a technician, who controls the simulator’s software and hardware.

“It’s pretty labor intensive in that sense, but it’s a very good simulator that gives people an opportunity to experience a lot of different clinical scenarios with patients or with a simulator without having to have a patient actually in that situation,” Daluga said.

METI HPS comes programmed with approximately 60 scenarios, from a bee sting to internal bleeding. Not only can instructors choose the scenario, they can also change or complicate the simulator’s responses midstream.

“It can be stressful and sometimes we intend it to be a little stressful, like simulating a cardiac arrest situation where certain things have to be done in a timely manner or the patient is in jeopardy. Although you know it’s not a real patient, it still provokes a bit of anxiety, which is normal when you’re in that kind of situation,” Daluga said.

Students from Indiana University’s Terre Haute Center for Medical Education at Indiana State University, family practice residents from Union Hospital’s family practice residency program, nursing students from Indiana State University and Union Hospital intensive care unit nurses can participate in training with the simulator to get hands-on experience.

Such training actually improves patient care because the healthcare students and professionals will have had the opportunity to do things with the simulator prior to seeing it in a real-life setting, Daluga said.

Those who have trained on the simulator instantly realize the invaluable experience available to them.

Megan Sebree of Terre Haute, an IU School of Medicine student, has worked with the METI HPS once.

“We spent an entire afternoon working through various scenarios that might possibly happen to you in the emergency room or if it were your own patient in your office. He's so lifelike with all of his reactions and things like breath sounds and heart sounds. It was a really good experience just to learn hands-on how to deal with different situations,” she said.

Aside from the METI HPS, The Landsbaum Center is equipped with a 150-seat lecture hall, three classrooms, patient exam rooms, study areas and offices.

“I’m extremely impressed with this facility,” said Shawn Horrall, a second-year medical student from Washington, Ind. “The METI, as well as the technology involved in the classrooms and student study rooms, is amazing. I think it will give us more opportunities to use the technology as well as areas to get away and spend time with our books as we need to.”

The $7.9 million Landsbaum Center, at 1433 N. 6 ½ Street, will be formally dedicated in ceremonies at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26. The public may tour the facility from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. and again from 3 - 4 p.m.

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Note:  Photos and video for this story are available by contacting ISU Public Affairs at (812) 237-3773

Contacts and Writers:
Paula Meyer, ISU Public Affairs, (812) 237.3783 or devmeyer@isugw.indstate.edu
and Dave Taylor, ISU Public Affairs, (812) 237.3743 or devtaylo@isugw.indstate.edu

ISU Public Affairs:
(812) 237-3773 or http://isunews.indstate.edu