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The SimTiki Center and Control Room at JABSOM

The simulated patient lab at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa medical school has reached elite status—becoming 1 of only 13 such centers in the country accredited for research as well as teaching.

The Simulation Center at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) is called SimTiki. It features breathing, talking mannequins with vital signs. The simulated patients can be programmed to experience virtually any sort of medical emergency, and to respond to treatment.

The mannequins make for life-like encounters used to test students’ clinical and emergency skills. SimTiki conducts about 1,000 encounters per year for medical students and MDs who are still in residency (or graduate medical education training) at JABSOM, as well as for community-based professional healthcare workers ranging from air ambulance crews to hospital trauma teams. SimTiki operators are also in demand on the road. Last year they trained medical educators in more than 30 overseas programs, including in Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and Poland.


KITV news story: UH Simulation Center draws national
attention
, February 21, 2015

“The significance of this accreditation is its recognition of the expertise of our SimTiki educators, their unique skills at utlizing the simulation technology to develop compelling, highly successful, hands-on learning courses for health care providers in Hawaiʻi and around the world,” said Jerris Hedges, JABSOM dean. “That knowledge and the result of educational research conducted at SimTiki are exported by our school to teach other educators how to effectively employ simulation training.”

The Society for Simulation in Healthcare Accreditation recognized the SimTiki Center in January 2015 in the areas of research and in education and teaching. The elaborate application process included a site visit and a 763-paged document completed by the instructional team at SimTiki, including Director Ben Berg, Associate Director Jannet Lee, Chief Simulation Specialist Kris Hara and SimTiki Program Manager Eileen Maeda.

—By Tina Shelton

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