UT Arlington School of Nursing, a Laerdal Center of Excellence in Simulation, a Hill-Rom National Demonstration Showcase and a Cardinal Health Nursing Discovery Center, is on the leading edge of  innovations in health care education allowing students to experience a wide variety of patient disease conditions while on campus.
 

     The Smart Hospital™ is a 13,000 sq ft simulated hospital environment complete with state-of-the-science equipment and furnishings. In this facility, nursing students interact with and provide care to a full array of simulated patients who occupy the Emergency Room, ICU, Labor & Delivery (LDRP) suites, pediatric unit, Neo-Natal ICU, adult medical /surgical beds and the large team training resuscitation room.  The students learn utilizing simulation technology including: full body interactive patient simulators (like SimMan® and SimBaby™), computerized scenario-based programs and individual trainers for specific skills like starting IV's.

     The "patients" who populate our Smart Hospital™ are life-sized computerized manikins that actually interact with the learners. Patients include infants, children, adults and even a mother in labor who goes through the labor process and delivers a newborn. Some manikins are static (not interactive) but others are interactive and responsive - they can speak and breathe, have heart sounds and lung sounds, and can progress through the various stages of numerous clinical states from birth through death. In addition, we have specially trained actors who can serve as patients or family members in clinical teaching scenes. In each clinical scenario, the students are exposed to situations and changes in patient conditions, both subtle and obvious, that they will experience in actual practice. With repeated exposure to these situations, students develop a deeper understanding of clinical conditions and become more adept at critical and clinical thinking. With this foundation, our students move more quickly from novice to expert and in so doing enhance the quality of patient care they provide.

Use the Smart Hospital Overview link to learn more about the development phases.