OSF HealthCare and the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria have opened a new center that will allow medical students, doctors and nurses to train side by side.
The partners celebrated the opening of the Jump Trading Simulation and Education Center on the campus of Saint Francis. The center is a virtual hospital stacked with the latest medical equipment and simulation technology. The goal is to improve patient outcomes and lower health-care costs.
Dr. Sara Rusch is the Regional Dean of the U of I College of Medicine at Peoria. She says the center is not just for training medical professionals with OSF and the college. Rusch says it can also help grow the medical district.
"We'll recruit doctors because of this asset and then we believe this will also bring in engineers and others who say well I would like to test my device or create my device working with a doctor in a simulated environment. And then we also have to certify doctors, so we believe doctors from across the country will come here in order to learn, and that will encourage patients to come here because their physicians will have been here for learning."
The 51-million dollar facility is six floors. The first two are being used for simulation and education. It’s hoped the remaining floors will be used for research based on the simulation setting.