Facebook
Twitter
Linked In
Overview
More
About Us
Quality, reliability and safety are primary concerns in your professional world—and in ours. At SiTEL of MedStar Health, we provide a comprehensive education and training solution to those who work in healthcare. As seasoned professionals, we have many years of experience in the practice and management of medicine and healthcare, respectively. We understand how training impacts performance in hospitals.
Products and Services
On Demand Learning
We help organizations leverage their own talent and build learning communities.
Clinical Simulation
We created and continue to manage two of the nation’s largest simulation centers.
Instructional Design
Our experiential learning approach blends clinical simulation, virtual worlds and on demand learning.
Live Events
Our Live Events provide an opportunities to learn about technologies, methodologies, and groundbreaking thinking.
Blog
Our integrated learning services are designed to empower healthcare organizations by combining Instructional Design, Clinical Simulation, Live Events, and On Demand Learning.
Learn. Practice. Perform.
Blog
16
Aug
2010
2010
Designing Simulation Centers of the Future
Posted by Ashley Vercoe
How do we create a great experience for patients in hospitals? In the ever-evolving world of healthcare, it can be extremely difficult to keep up with the changing demands. The best solution today will not be the best solution tomorrow. Most hospitals are not designed to adapt to changes in technologies and practices. They must continuously retrofit facilities to accommodate new technologies. These renovations are costly, both financially and operationally.
Herman Miller, in partnership with Continuum, is leading the way in healthcare environments with the design of Compass. Researchers began by talking to more than 550 hospital staff, patients, and designers to discover opportunities to improve the design of healthcare facilities. Flexibility was one of the main considerations that came to the surface time and time again. One pioneering aspect of Compass is components that can be wall-mounted on a rail system. Elements are easily reconfigurable and can by “recycled.” Standardized componentry can be used in different rooms depending on the specific needs of the room. This modular healthcare system addresses the ever-changing needs of hospital environments in a cost-effective manner without compromising on functionality.
The design of Herman Miller’s Compass product line focuses on a better experience, not a better product. Gianfranco Zaccai, co-founder of Continuum and lead designer for the Compass system, comments on the healthcare environment: “If the system makes the caregiver more effective, the patient will do better. Compass creates an environment that is credible and familiar. It is an uplifting environment. It communicates that the facility/organization cares for you, the patient, as a person.”
This approach to a systematic design falls in line with Herman Miller’s stance on sustainable and flexible design. “Compass was developed according to Herman Miller’s industry-leading Design for the Environment protocol, which emphasizes recyclability of materials, recycled content and ease of disassembly.”
Changes in our hospitals drive how we design training environments for healthcare professionals in our simulation centers. SITEL has partnered with Herman Miller and is utilizing its sustainable design approach to build its new clinical simulation center. With over 150 different courses available to choose from, totaling 16,000 sessions a year, SITEL’s CSC floor plan can rapidly be modified with moveable walls and stations to allow training sessions and research components to be customized as needed. At the forefront of this center is education. The space must consider the needs of the participants in the center, the technological needs of today and the future, and the atmosphere that best sets the stage for clinical education and training. Like a hospital room, our simulation centers face the ongoing challenge of keeping up with demand.
By designing a dynamic environment, the center adapts to the ever-advancing needs of a clinical setting. This approach will accommodate simultaneous sessions, as well as a greater variety of group and individual task training and skills development sessions. This flexibility fosters multiple types of learning and allows the space to grow and mature as the center’s needs change. Technologies that are at the forefront today can be replaced with tomorrow’s technologies in this modular setting.
This systems approach can effectively keep up with the ever-changing technology and environmental demands by being flexible in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. By designing a participant-centric facility, SiTEL addresses the needs of participants today, tomorrow, and years from now thanks to the modularity of the center. SiTEL’s collaboration with Herman Miller has produced a blueprint for transforming clinical training environments that meet the fast-paced revolving world of healthcare environments and technologies.
For more information about Herman Miller’s Compass System please visit www.hermanmiller.com
Rate this blog post:
About Ashley Vercoe
Share This
Feature Story
Recent Posts
Authors
Hollie Adejumo
Hollie Adejumo has been a high school intern at the SiTEL Clinical Simulation Center since 2010. Her principal areas of academic interest include chemistry, calculus, and global health. She is interested in providing medical services to the public and serving as a health advocate for underrepresented populations. Hollie hopes that her research will help to reduce unnecessary deaths in the future. She will pursue a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, which will enable her to combine her interests. Proceeding to obtain an MD/PhD will give her the ability to have autonomy in the practice of medicine. This year Ms. Adejumo will be assessing the need for orthopedic simulators, and hopes to begin designing a program for an orthopedic simulator by the end of the year. Outside of school, Hollie participates in a variety of activities. Although she has been a competitive swimmer for most of her life, she also enjoys running cross country and track.
Joyce Donnellan
As the Director of Learning Management, Joyce Donnellan brings over two decades of experience in critical care nursing education and professional development to SiTEL, Medstar’s Simulation and Training Environment Laboratory. She oversees the development and operation of SiTEL’s learning management system. Ms. Donnellan specializes in the development and integration of the learning management systems in complex and decentralized environments. She has extensive experience in education and training, including the development of curricula for both live and e-learning platforms. Ms. Donnellan enjoys collaborating with program directors, educators, and other stakeholders to develop training events and effective curricula. Her research endeavors include studying the impact of online learning on organizational behavior, as well as the integration of educational games into curriculum development. Joyce has presented nationally on e-learning topics, and on innovation in emergency preparedness training. She earned her Master’s of Science in Nursing degree from George Mason University.
Pamela Leonard
Pamela Leonard brings over 15 years of experience in critical care nursing and management to her role as the Director of the SiTEL’s Clinical Simulation Centers. Pam established the first simulation center for MedStar Health and now oversees the operations of several clinical simulation centers in the greater Washington, DC and Baltimore areas. She leads the Clinical Simulation Consulting Services at SiTEL, leveraging best practices pioneered at MedStar to integrate simulation training and education programs into healthcare operations. Pam works closely with Advanced Initiatives in Medical Simulation. AIMS is a coalition of individuals and organizations committed to promoting medical simulation as a way to improve patient safety, reduce medical errors, ensure provider competency, train people to respond to public emergencies and combat situations, and reduce health care costs.
