By Frank Schultz
The Janesville Gazette (Wisconsin)
Copyright 2007 The Janesville Gazette
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
JANESVILLE, Wis. — You can slide a tube down his throat, take his pulse or stick a needle in his arm.
He might cry out in pain, but no harm done. He isn’t human.
He’s a mannequin.
Blackhawk Technical College recently bought a Human Patient Simulator at a cost of $196,000.
The price tag is hefty, but the payoff could be priceless.
Students learning to be nursing assistants or EMTs will be able to practice skills they rarely do now, instructors said Monday.
The result, according to the company that created the HPS, will be safer health care and maybe even some lives saved.
HPS is not just a mannequin. It’s run by a computer system that can simulate 30 different sets of symptoms. Air pressure makes its chest rise and fall and simulates a pulse. Eyes open and close.
Colored water can simulate blood, and students can actually find a blood vessel and insert an intravenous tube.
Nursing-assistant instructor Carol J. Brueggeman unzipped the HPS’s chest in a demonstration Monday. Inside were electrical and air-pressure connections. Air hissed with each rising and falling of his chest, bringing Darth Vader to mind.
Blackhawk Tech instructors still are learning the intricacies of the Human Patient Simulator. They hope to make it a regular part of all medical-care classes by next fall.
A small group of radiography students were the first to see it in action Monday. A predictable giggle escaped as EMS instructor Tina Jordan talked about turning him on.
“You can take his blood pressure, or you can take all the vitals on him, just like a real person,” Jordan said.
For the purposes of Monday’s demo, the HPS was a man. But “he” could become a “she” because of interchangeable, zippered parts.
The HPS can simulate internal bleeding, hypertension or asthma. The tongue will swell with the right stimulus. The eyes react to light. It can even urinate. And yes, students can learn how to insert a catheter in him ... or her.
Students can administer fake drugs, and the HPS will “read” the drug with a bar-code scanner and respond to the treatment.
The HPS is capable of 30 medical scenarios, requiring students to figure out what’s wrong and react. Another 90 scenarios may be purchased.
Instructors familiar with the Sim Man say they’re impressed and excited about its potential.
“He’s way more complex than I thought he was going to be,” Jordan said.
Now, students practice on each other. But those scenarios are limited by the fact that they’re real humans.
“Students need to learn how to critically think, and if you don’t do complex scenarios, they never really do that,” Jordan said.
Brueggeman said the simulator should boost student confidence. It can run students through life-saving procedures that they would rarely be exposed to otherwise.
“It’s not every day you go to the hospital and someone quits breathing on you,” Brueggeman noted.
Although the HPS has been on the market less than 10 years, studies already have shown it can improve students’ ability to treat patients, even in crisis situations, according to an article in the Journal of Nursing Education.
“It allows them to practice the skills in an environment where they don’t have to feel they’re going to harm the patient,” Brueggeman said.
Already, local health care and rescue agencies have asked to use the HPS to improve the skills of people already on the job, Jordan said. Eventually, outside agencies will be able to rent training time with the mannequin.
A technician behind one-way glass runs the scenario on a computer screen.
The computer program records the students’ actions so they can be critiqued later.
The technician can alter the scenario, sending the patient into cardiac arrest, for example. The technician also can pretend to be the patient by speaking into a microphone.
“I’m scared,” the HPS was heard to say Monday.
“Stay calm, buddy,” responded radiology student Kasey Baldwin of Janesville.
“We’re getting you some medicine.”