The Veterans Health Administration operates a $43 million medical facility in Orlando that regularly welcomes healthcare workers, but no patients, according to CNBC.
The National Center for Simulation Validation, Evaluation and Testing — or SimVET — is a 53,000-square-foot simulation hospital with 60 full-time employees that opened in 2016. The facility is the largest simulation lab in the VA and one of the largest in the nation.
Healthcare teams regularly visit the facility to practice new technologies or perform new procedures in a low-risk environment. The facility is usually running several pilots and projects concurrently, many of which are based on ideas from national program offices and front-line workers, according to the report.
Amanda Borchers, BSN, RN, patient safety manager at Lexington (Ky.) VA Medical Center, visited SimVET last spring with a surgical emergency team seeking ideas to improve their response to unexpected surgical complications. The team spent a week running various simulations and connecting with national experts, ultimately landing on a new medical code and protocol they expect to implement at their medical center in the coming months.
"You can fail, but fail safely, and then you use that to make a change. And then you do it again. And then you do it again," Ms. Borchers told CNBC of the simulation process. "The transformation, and what we would be able to do in an unanticipated emergency, was amazing."
The SimVET facility mirrors an industrywide trend in which more healthcare organizations are using simulation to enhance training, improve patient safety and evaluate new technologies.
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