Banner Baywood Medical Center and Banner Heart Hospital recently opened a "mini-sim lab" on their shared campus as a way to improve employee skills and patient safety.

With 300 square feet of dedicated space, the laboratory is a good example of Banner Health's plans to provide access to simulation education throughout its system.

The Banner Baywood/Banner Heart  site has two mannequins for nurses and other health care providers to practice on as well as four computer stations at a mock "nurses' station''.  Learners can practice a clinical skill (such as inserting a bladder catheter) on the mannequin and then go to the computer to learn appropriate charting.

The classroom also provides opportunity for clinical educators to more actively involve learners rather than just delivering a lecture.

Resources permitting, the Baywood facility will have telemedicine capabilities so that a class could be conducted at the larger simulation lab and a group of learners at Baywood could participate from their  facility.