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SPARCC at °ÅÀÖÊÓƵ

By providing a varied approach to simulation experiences, Simulation Patient Assessment and Resuscitation through Communication Center (SPARCC) will provide learners with the opportunity to participate in an inter-professional environment that mirrors today’s collaborative approach to health care delivery. Future healthcare professionals can refine their advanced technical skills and critical thinking while maintaining patient safety, improving patient care, and promoting positive patient outcomes.  

Associate Degree Nursing students with Prof Bileski and mannequin

What is SPARCC?

This state-of-the-art technology lab is accredited by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) and houses debrief rooms, immersive learning lab, control rooms, a standardized adult medical/surgical hospital room, pediatric room, obstetrical birthing room, and home apartment. SPARCC provides a safe and conducive educational environment that utilizes simulation to create a realistic learning experience for learners. This includes the incorporation of situational awareness, culturally diverse interpersonal communication skills, teamwork, clinical assessment, critical thinking, clinical reasoning, evidence-based best practice standards, and skill proficiency. SPARCC is housed within the new 68,500 square foot Framingham campus, which opened in January 2024. 

Mission Statement

Our mission is to improve clinical performance and promote patient safety by combining theory, educational practices, and cutting-edge simulation technologies into the training of all learners in an interactive and transformative environment. Our vision is to continue to promote and enhance patient safety and simulation education and to remove the silos by engaging in interdisciplinary simulated experiences. 

What is Simulation?

Simulation is the process of replicating reality. In healthcare education, simulation replicates some or nearly all the essential aspects of a clinical situation so that the situation may be more readily understood and managed when it occurs for real in clinical practice. The simulation lab environment allows students to participate in life-like situations. SPARCC is prepared to create a learning environment that encourages active learning, repetitive practice, and reflection, and to provide appropriate support throughout each activity. Simulation can also be used as a teaching method to help assess a student’s skill acquisition simulating real-life experiences.  Having students perform in a safe environment is conducive for developing critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and clinical judgment skills. Practicing in such an environment will increase the probability that those understandings and skills will be used in the real-world setting.

The SPARCC training facility offers a variety of simulation experiences including:

  1. Human Patient Simulators: High fidelity, medium fidelity, and low fidelity.
  2. Standardized Patients
  3. Computerized Simulation
  4. Escape Room
  5. Task Trainers
  6. Immersion Room
  7. Virtual Reality

By providing a varied approach to simulation experiences, SPARCC will provide learners with the opportunity to participate in an interprofessional environment that mirrors today’s collaborative approach to health care delivery. Future healthcare professionals can refine their advanced technical skills and critical thinking while maintaining patient safety, improving patient care, and promoting positive patient outcomes. 

Rooms in the Simulation Center

The high-fidelity rooms are equipped with advanced technology simulation manikins that mimic human bodily functions such as lung, heart, and bowel sounds, peripheral pulses and blood pressure, production of sweat, tears, and urine. The manikins can mimic signs of a stroke and even have a seizure. 

Our adult high-fidelity simulator is AI compatible and is designed to fulfill educational objectives across clinical disciplines and blur the lines between simulation and real-life scenarios. Students can intubate, insert peripheral IV lines, urinary catheters, chest tubes, and tracheostomy tubes. 

Our high-fidelity simulators range from infant to school age. They simulate lifelike emotions through dynamic facial expressions, movement, and speech. The simulators are designed to help students of all levels develop specialized skills to effectively communicate, diagnose, and treat young patients in a variety of clinical areas. 

Our birthing simulator simulates a wide range of obstetrical events from early pregnancy complications, high-risk deliveries, caesarean section, postpartum emergencies and non-gravid scenarios requiring general nursing care. The ability to offer a full range of obstetrical events facilitates teamwork and heightens clinical decision-making skills with the goal of improving safety in women’s health through discussion,  education and training. 

Set up like the room of a private apartment, the home health room allows students to practice interdisciplinary care in an authentic and real-world environment. For nursing and allied health students, practicing in a home setting allows them to develop and refine skills necessary for home healthcare, such as conducting home visits, assessing living conditions, and interacting with patients in their own environments. Simulating home environments also helps first responders practice emergency procedures and patient care in a non-hospital setting, which is critical for effective real-life application. 

The immersion room offers an interactive, multi-sensory learning experience for students. This state-of-the-art space uses 360-degree projections, lifelike sounds, and simulated scents to create realistic clinical environments from busy emergency rooms to a multi-vehicular highway car crash. The room enhances critical thinking by exposing students to realistic patient interactions, evolving case scenarios, and situational stressors, preparing them for real-world healthcare challenges.

Student Testimonials

As a student of the ADN class of 2024, I was lucky enough to spend my last semester in the new Health Sciences building. I value the experiences of participating in Simulation Lab and appreciate the technology that allows students to learn in a format that closely replicates real-life situations.

Incoming students will surely benefit from the opportunities afforded by this state-of-the-art technology. There are two simulation experiences that I felt really made an impact. The first was the experience on "Distressing Voices," and the other was the simulation of a "Visiting Nurse" in the 'apartment' within the Simulation Lab.

I have accepted a job at Beth Israel, Needham, on a Medical Surgical unit. I can say with certainty that this is because of the clinical rotation I had under the leadership of Simulation Director Heather Munroe, MSN.

— Christine Moran, graduate spring 2024

20

Our nursing program uses the new Simulation Lab (Center) in Framingham. One memorable experience allowed me to evaluate an elderly patient in an apartment setting that was very realistic.  The patient's condition had declined from the previous visit and presented with a stage 4  pressure injury, high fever, and diminished level of consciousness that needed immediate medical attention.  The apartment setting helped me prepare for a real-life scenario that I might encounter as a visiting nurse. The Simulation Center at °ÅÀÖÊÓƵ takes us to an entirely different level of training and preparation. It is the best experience ever.

— Jeanette Reichenbach, ADN Graduating Class,
Spring 2024