On Tuesday, July 1, the Elmhurst College nursing department’s robotic “Sim” patients, which can be programmed to exhibit symptoms ranging from running a fever to going into labor, will be used in intensive simulation exercises for City of Elmhurst emergency personnel.
The exercises will provide simulated learning for first responders, Elmhurst College nursing students and Elmhurst Memorial Hospital personnel and, ultimately, transportation of the Sim patients—by ambulance, fittingly—to their new home, the Elmhurst College Simulation Center at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital.
Elmhurst College’s Deicke Center for Nursing, in collaboration with the Elmhurst Fire Department and Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, will hold the simulation exercises starting at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, in the parking lot next to Elmhurst College’s Schaible Science Center.
During the first exercise, Elmhurst paramedics will arrive on the scene of a staged car accident, with the Sim patients trapped inside. Firefighters and paramedics will extricate and assess the patients, then transport them by ambulance to Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, where Emergency Room staff will be waiting. A second scenario, which also will begin in the Schaible parking lot and then move to Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, will simulate a woman experiencing chest pain. Because the Sim patients’ condition can be continually altered, paramedics and emergency staff will not know what to expect, making the training exercises all the more realistic.
Eventually, all five of Elmhurst College’s Sim patients will be transported to Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, where construction is nearly finished on the College’s state-of-the art Simulation Center. Once completed, the 4,600-square-foot laboratory and classroom space, located in the hospital’s lower level, will enable the College’s nursing students to practice and build clinical knowledge and skills in safety and without risk to patients.