The National SimVET Center in Lake Nona is relaunching on Sept. 14 to celebrate its new mandate: test out technologies to see which ones will help providers give better care via the 1,000-plus Veterans Administration care sites around the nation. The relaunch event is from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at 13800 Veterans Way, Bldg. 13 Orlando, FL 32827.
While SimVET will continue to offer simulated training experiences for frontline health care workers, “There always was a vision to do more testing and evaluation and use immersive environments to go beyond education and training,” said Dr. Scott Wiltz, the facility’s medical director. He leads a team of about 60 staffers.
The newly renamed National SimVET Center opened in 2016 as the SimLEARN Center with a focus on training health care workers in the contiguous United States, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and some other Pacific islands. After the pandemic, the VA flipped the script, developing curriculum materials and sending them to local sites, said Wiltz, which freed up “room for this simulation, validation, evaluation and testing idea.”
The center’s first big tech testing event happened in May 2023, when 20 in-person users, a few online users and eight SimLEARN staffers gathered to test AI-powered dictation software.
“The software captures a conversation and actually turns it into a note for a patient’s file. It doesn't just transcribe the information, it turns it into clinician speak,” said Wiltz. “We tried it in inpatient spaces, outpatient spaces, the emergency department — we really stress-tested the system, introducing environments where there was a ton of background noise, things beeping and buzzing and multiple conversations going on to see if the technology would pick up the relevant conversation between the doctor and the patient, and it actually did really well.
If a real hospital isn’t an option, properly testing health care technology requires a space that mimics a hospital, and that’s where the SimVET Center comes in. A 51,000-square-foot simulated hospital, SimVET has two operating rooms, three intensive care units, two trauma bays, and a working simulation of the back of an ambulance. The center also has four rooms for specialty care services and six regular outpatient rooms.
Thanks to the realistic settings, the staff at SimVET can accurately gauge devices, equipment and software and how those things will incorporate into an end-users workflow, said Wiltz. In the end, SimVET makes its recommendations and it’s up to each location to decide what to incorporate.
Medical technology in Orlando
Major advancements in medical technology are permeating health care operations around the world. Some of those technologies originate here in Orlando, and may be among those tested at SimVET.
Care.ai is an Orlando Inno 2023 Fire Awards honoree that created a platform that facilitates a digitally-connected environment that is sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. According to Kismet Technologies President Shari Costantini, who heard the company’s pitch, “their question is, could we eliminate the need for nurse observation by using technology? And I think there's some validity to that.”
Given today’s nursing shortage, a tech solution could be something to consider.
Orlando-based Sciperio has developed a type of 3D printer for manufacturing blood to be used for transfusions, a technology currently getting attention from the Department of Defense for battlefield use, although founder Kenneth Church imagines many possible uses, given how critically low the blood supply is.
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