Arizona Simulation Technology & Education Center - Training Ground for the Future of Health Care
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.
Using lifelike manikins, ASTEC personnel train staff from a local drug rehab facility to treat overdose with naloxone.
Using lifelike manikins, ASTEC personnel train staff from a local drug rehab facility to treat overdose with naloxone.
Using lifelike manikins, ASTEC personnel train staff from a local drug rehab facility to treat overdose with naloxone. ASTEC Executive Director Allan Hamilton, MD, FACS, observes from the back left.
ASTEC Executive Director Allan Hamilton, MD, FACS, helps train staff from a local drug rehab facility to treat overdose with naloxone.
“Simulation is the education of the future,” says ASTEC Executive Director Allan Hamilton, MD, FACS. “In terms of what you can solve with simulation, it’s only your imagination that limits you.”
Pulmonary residents use ASTEC’s SimDeck to practice medical procedures in simulated environments.
The College of Nursing uses lifelike manikins to practice removing toenails.
The College of Nursing uses lifelike manikins to practice removing toenails.
The College of Nursing uses lifelike manikins to practice removing toenails.
ASTEC’s SimDeck is a two-story soundstage and training environment. Here, emergency medicine students learn ultrasound techniques in a simulated environment.
From an adjacent control room, SimDeck participants are observed on monitors.
ASTEC’s manikins allow Arizona Life Flight personnel to practice on realistic models to sharpen their response to drownings and hit-and-run accidents.
ASTEC’s manikins allow Arizona Life Flight personnel to practice on realistic models to sharpen their response to drownings and hit-and-run accidents.
ASTEC’s SimDeck is a two-story soundstage and training environment with multiple reconfigurable rooms where students and health care providers can practice medical procedures in simulated environments.
An internal medicine student uses a lifelike manikin to practice administering chest compressions.
ASTEC’s SimDeck is a two-story soundstage and training environment with multiple reconfigurable rooms where health care providers, such as these critical care residents, can practice medical procedures in simulated environments.
Internal medicine students practice on high-fidelity manikins that can be programmed to simulate a wide range of patients.
ASTEC’s SimDeck is a two-story soundstage and training environment with multiple reconfigurable rooms where students and health care providers can practice medical procedures in simulated environments.
An internal medicine student practices on a simulated airway.
ASTEC’s SimDeck is a two-story soundstage and training environment with multiple reconfigurable rooms where health care providers, such as this emergency medicine resident, can practice medical procedures in simulated environments.
An emergency medicine student practices placing a tracheostomy tube using a simulated airway.
From left: Allan Hamilton, MD, FACS, executive director of ASTEC, Kevin Moynahan, MD, College of Medicine – Tucson deputy dean for education, and Deana Ann Smith, BS, BSN, RN, healthcare simulation educator, work on a life-size virtual dissection table.
Emergency medicine residents gather around a standardized patient to learn how to administer ultrasound for different injuries.
A medical student practices on a simulated airway.