Year

2012

Size

13,000 sf

Cost

$12.0M

Role

Project Manager/Project Architect

Awards

The 3rd floor of an existing 50-year-old building was transformed into the UH School of Nursing’s Translational Health Science Simulation Center (THSSC), a state-of-the-art simulation center that is vital to the education and training of future and current nursing professionals. Modeled after some of Hawaii’s leading health care agencies and the best practices in nursing education around the country, the THSSC utilizes high-fidelity manikins and distance learning technology to simulate real-life medical scenarios, allowing students to be active participants in emergency situations, and provide instantaneous feedback to bedside students as well as those in adjacent debriefing rooms, on neighbor islands, and around the Pacific Rim. The THSSC will benefit and serve the island community for generations to come. The Center contains seven simulation rooms with high-fidelity medical mannequins playing the role of patients. The rooms are equipped with hospital apparatus where emergency/trauma, labor and delivery, adult/neonatal/pediatric intensive care, and home care scenarios are staged. A testament to the University’s commitment to sustainability, the project achieved a LEED Gold Certification. "Until recently, health care learning happened in a classroom or clinical setting where patients are at risk. We never want to get away from hands-on experience. But there is a golden moment when we have the opportunity to take what we know about learning, to use technology to its fullest and provide simulated experience that translates into real-live situations." -Mary G. Boland, DrPH, RN, FAAN, Dean and Professor, UH School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene