Facility Description
The University of Arizona Health Sciences (UAHS) Arizona Simulation Technology and Education Center (ASTEC) is a 30,000 sq. ft. facility that provides interprofessional learning opportunities in a high-tech, realistically simulated environment. ASTEC engages learners at all levels of healthcare education, utilizing high-fidelity simulation technology with innovative methods of experiential learning theory. The facility is equipped with a 6,000 sq. ft. “simdeck” that includes six patient rooms, three of which can be converted to any type of hospital environment. The other three represent an operating room, intensive care unit, and labor and delivery suit, each of which include hospital-grade gases. These rooms, along with a pharmacy, surround a 3,000 sq. ft., two-story multipurpose area that can be utilized for any large-scale training event, including a variety of procedural-based training stations. This area also includes a thirty-foot projector-based wide area virtual environment and a professional sound and light stage. A centralized control room operates the entire floor, including controls for the audio-visual learner management system and the operation of all human patient simulators. Also included on the floor is a synthetic cadaver and 3D immersive anatomy lab, two debriefing rooms and a large, flexible classroom.
The remaining areas in ASTEC include a 2,000 sq. ft. workshop that operates as an innovation space for simulation technology development. This space is fully equipped with casting and molding technologies as well as high-end 3D printing/scanning abilities for patient specific anatomic models and rapid prototyping of procedural models for training activities. It is equipped with virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies, a space for motion analysis studies, and electrical and mechanical engineering needs, including the testing and design of optic technologies. A separate wet and dry research lab that can be designated for specific research projects, especially those that require greater privacy and/or minimal distractions, is adjacent to the workshop. ASTEC also houses an artificial intelligence division that operates out of one of these research labs. These innovation areas complement the greater simulation center’s educational and research mission for use with both internal and external collaborations.
Available Healthcare Simulation Technologies
ASTEC is equipped with the following technologies:
- A complete range of mid- to high- fidelity computerized patient simulators that represent patient population diversity and the entire human lifespan
- More than 100 procedural task training models covering a range of basic and physical examination skills to the most intensive, acute care interventions
- Many of these models come from ASTEC’s in-house modelmaking operation
- A comprehensive suite of virtual, augmented, and game-based training systems that can provide an in-depth review of anatomy as well as repeated practice of highly specialized interventions for which performance can be objectively tracked for improvement over time
- All associated, actual medical equipment that operates with our simulation equipment, or simulation-specific technologies that function medical equipment would in real patient care settings
- This equipment includes, but is not limited to ventilators, defibrillators, and IV pumps used with our full body patient simulators, and ultrasound machines and surgical equipment for procedural-based training
