Arizona Simulation Technology & Education Center - Training Ground for the Future of Health Care

Feb. 16, 2020
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Pulmonary residents use ASTEC’s SimDeck to practice medical procedures in simulated environments.

Pulmonary residents use ASTEC’s SimDeck to practice medical procedures in simulated environments.

The Arizona Simulation Technology and Education Center is an important part of health care training and continuing education for the University of Arizona Health Sciences. Located in the Health Sciences Innovation Building in Tucson since 2019, ASTEC has many gadgets in its toolkit: high-fidelity manikins, virtual and augmented reality devices, and game-based learning systems. The crown jewel of the center is the SimDeck, a two-story soundstage and training environment with multiple reconfigurable rooms. Here, learners can be fully immersed in simulated events, such as a complicated birth scenario, a forest fire, mass casualty event, basic airway, suturing and laparoscopic surgery training. ASTEC also has its own 3D printing and artificial tissue laboratory, a resource unique to health care simulation centers that grew out of a collaboration between the colleges of engineering and medicine.