Simulation Centre for Patient Safety - part 1
From left to right: an immersive simulation, Centre staff with a mannequin including Jane Torrie second from left, and a row of mannequins (images: University of Auckland)
The University of Auckland’s Simulation Centre for Patient Safety is a training facility, where healthcare students and staff use a whole family of mannequins, from newborns to adults, to learn a range of real-life skills.
Many rooms in the facility could easily be mistaken for a hospital suite, where equipment like live defibrillators are used, and real medications can be dispensed. There are hospital beds and trolleys, gloves on the walls, and the Centre includes a well-equipped operating room and ward area which can transform into various rooms including a postoperative recovery area, an emergency department bed space, or even an airway skills lab.
While some of the mannequins are extremely high-tech and controlled by computers, others are similar to the head and torso mannequins used in CPR training. Depending on the training objectives, participants could be involved in simple skills-based exercises, or in immersive scenarios to learn healthcare techniques as well as other important factors that affect patient safety, like teamwork or communication skills, in a safe but realistic environment.
The Director of simulation-based training, Jane Torrie, took Ruth Beran on a tour of the new facility which was opened in mid-2011 on the Tamaki Campus.
From left to right: a mannequin in a hospital bed with oxygen mask, the viewing room with one way glass looking onto a simulation, and some face masks for the mannequins (images: University of Auckland)
