Start-up of a simulation center in an acute care hospital

High-fidelity simulation facilitates the professional development and interprofessional collaboration of health care providers across multiple disciplines and specialties, thus reducing medical errors, improving patient safety, and changing the way that health care professionals feel about and manage the low-occurrence, high-risk scenarios that inevitably occur in the clinical setting. Less complex forms of simulation have long been used to teach clinical competencies and critical thinking, standardize care, and improve interdisciplinary communication. Because high-fidelity simulation can provide an edge in continuing health care education, innovative organizations increasingly use high-fidelity simulation. Often, simulation centers are built from the ground up by health care personnel who have minimal experience with high-fidelity simulation or other forms of advanced technology. This article describes the start-up of a simulation center for interprofessional continuing education in the acute care setting.