RespiSim is State-of-the-Art at Laurel Technical Institute
We recently spoke with Monica Simko, BSRC, RRT; Director of Allied Health and Respiratory Therapy for Laurel Technical Institute, located in Sharon, PA.
IngMar Medical: What training challenges has the RespiSim® System helped you overcome?
Monica Simko: The RespiSim System enables us to create realistic patient-ventilator scenarios. We can easily change resistance and compliance settings, so that students can actually observe the changes in the manikin for different patients and disease states. For example, with the RespiPatient® manikin, students can practice manual ventilation for a variety of patient conditions. We were not able to reproduce these conditions prior to acquiring the RespiSim System.
We looked into a handful of manikins from other companies, but the RespiSim was the only one focused specifically on advanced respiratory functionsMonica Simko
IngMar Medical: How has this impacted your school facilities?
Monica Simko: We want to offer our students state-of-the-art equipment and capabilities. Using the RespiSim System and being able to change settings to demonstrate different patient conditions and how the ventilator responds is an important benefit. In fact, our work with the RespiSim System has been so successful that we are hoping to add multi-disciplinary training involving other allied health programs, conducting patient scenarios involving the whole healthcare team. So RespiSim has expanded our ability to simulate scenarios, and teach the concept of teamwork as well.
IngMar Medical: What is unique about the RespiSim System that you were unable to find elsewhere?
Monica Simko: The flexibility of the RespiSim System is exceptional. With RespiSim we have the capability to change patient settings on-the-fly, or to toggle between different disease states and severity levels, and then have students experience the changes. We don’t really have these options with other manikins/systems. Of course the most valuable feature is the ability to simulate a spontaneously-breathing patient in such a sophisticated way.
IngMar Medical: What is the value of the RespiSim System to your program?
Monica Simko: You can’t really put a number on it, but the ability to offer a state-of-the-art system has definitely increased the value of our department’s hands-on learning environment. We hope that RespiSim will also allow us to expand our programming, by starting up inter-disciplinary training to develop teamwork.
The RespiSim System benefits our students by giving them as realistic an experience as possible, short of using actual humans!Monica Simko
IngMar Medical: How does the system benefit your students?
Monica Simko: Giving the students a more realistic experience (short of using actual humans) is so important! The RespiSim system makes it much easier for the instructor relate the particular subject being studied to actual hands-on training.
IngMar Medical: Would you recommend RespiSim to other teaching institutions?
Monica Simko: Yes. Because of RespiSim’s realism and specific focus on respiratory, the system is a winner. We applied for a state grant, for a specific amount allocated for respiratory training. We looked into a handful of manikins from other companies, but the RespiSim was the only one focused specifically on advanced respiratory functions. Furthermore, because it is a compact, portable unit, we actually share the RespiSim with another campus in Uniontown, PA for their respiratory program. However, if approved for another grant, we would definitely buy another unit for that facility.
The Laurel Business/Technical Institute School of Healthcare offers a Specialized Associate’s Degree in Respiratory Therapy. Laurel Technical Institute has 5 campus locations, offering an array of allied health programs, business & trade training programs. Of the allied health programs the respiratory program is the largest.
Learn more about the RespiSim System.