High-tech Patient Simulators, the Techy Family
Nat Techy is one of the permanent residents of the Nursing Institute’s Living Laboratory and one of the unluckiest jocks at Wright State University. Fortunately, all it takes to cure Nat’s often broken limbs is a few mouse clicks on the laptop computer that controls him. Nat and the other members of the Techy family are sophisticated human patient simulators operated via computer by experience nursing educators.
“The key to students getting the most out of the simulation is making the learning session believable or giving it the highest level of realism,” says Patti Burnell, director of simulator education for the Nursing Institute of West Central Ohio. “It doesn’t get much realer than this.”
Each of the Living Laboratory’s five simulators – Nat, Andy, Beth, Josie, and Grandpa George Techy – has a medical history, and each requires a different array of nursing skills. Young Josie, for example, is undergoing cancer therapy and needs frequent hydration. All Techy family members are life-size and have movable arms and legs. Most of them even have veins and arteries placed in medically appropriate positions so nursing students can practice basic tasks such as inserting an intravenous line.
Nat, among the most complex of the simulators, has internal workings that allow him to “breathe” with realistic chest movements and breathing sounds. Place a stethoscope to his chest and you hear a heartbeat; move to the stomach and you hear bowel sounds. You can feel a pulse in appropriate spots along his limbs, and “blood” can be extracted from his artificial veins. Nat even moans and grumbles in response to the pain in his broken leg.
 Nursing students enter the room in the Living Laboratory where Nat lies in bed in the same way they will someday enter the rooms of home care patients. Watching and listening through monitors will be Nat’s controller at a laptop computer. The controller, an experienced nurse such as Burnell, can elevate Nat’s heart rate, depress his breathing or create other symptoms the nursing students should be able to spot and respond to. Nat speaks, with the controller’s help, to describe his symptoms and answer questions.
Burnell says Beth, the mother of the Techy family, has interchangeable parts designed to familiarize students with the complexities of women’s health examinations such as Pap Smears and breast exams. Beth can be fitted with parts that demonstrate both normal and abnormal exam findings. She also has realistic bed sores and skin breakdown on her body to help learners recognize and treat those conditions.
A few members of the Techy famiy are older model patient simulators and are little more than soft mannequins. Still, they’re good tools for teaching such skills as patient bathing, Burnell says. The least sophisticated simulators are valued at around $800.
On the other hand, the more sophisticated simulators cost up to $40,000, which is enough to buy a luxury convertible or pay a year’s tuition and expenses at a topnotch private university. The Nursing Institute purchased Beth and Andy from Gaumard Scientific Inc. of Miami, Florida, and Nat from METI of Sarasota, Florida, utilizing grants provided by the State of Ohio and federal governments. Gramps and Josie and were transferred to the Nursing Institute when the Wright State University College of Nursing and Health upgraded its on-site equipment.
The Techy family is due to grow as the Nursing Institute expands its collection of patient simulators. Due to come to the Living Laboratory in 2010 is a female simulator set up to demonstrate labor and childbirth; she actually comes with newborns. More children are on the way as well to add Techy siblings aged one, five and seven.
Interested persons or groups may request tours of the Living Laboratory by contacting Nursing Institute Executive Director Debi Sampsel through her administrative assistant Diane Lewis at (937) 775-3940. Tour requests will be considered on the basis of how well the proposed tour outcomes fit the mission of the Nursing Institute and the Living Laboratory.
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