BIOMEDICAL SIMULATORS FOR TRAINING.

1.3 BIOMEDICAL SIMULATORS FOR TRAINING

Just as airline flight simulators help to train pilots, medical simulators are used to teach

medical professionals new skill sets prior to treating patients. This reduces the medical

errors in real situations and improves patient safety in hospitals.

These simulators allow the health care provider to review and practice the procedures

as often as necessary until he or she achieves proper proficiency, thereby reducing risk to

the patient’s health. There are several types of medical simulation tools (usually computer

based). They replicate the clinical situations, provide training, save money, and improve

the overall quality of patient care.

Companies like the Pinnacle Technology Group manufacture patient simulators such

as the arrhythmia training simulator shown in Figure 1-3. Its display waveforms use 3- to

12-lead ECG data. Using actual patient data, students receive proper training prior to working

with patients. Other companies such as National Instruments’ iWorx, BioPAC Systems’

BioPAC Student Lab, and CleveMed’s CleveLabs create integrated hardware and software

products that are designed to teach physiology and biomedical electronics to students and

researchers who plan to join the health care field.

iWorx develops, manufactures, and distributes electronic systems and components for

physiology teaching and research. BioPAC laboratories exercises provide detailed procedures

to demonstrate the principles of biophysics and biological measurements. The data

can be exported to MATLAB and LabView as well as to a Microsoft Word document or an

Excel spreadsheet. Figure 1-4 shows a BioPAC simulator. The simulator has input channels

from transducers that can be connected to an actual patient.

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