UND’s mobile simulation project SIM-ND to host an ‘open house’ on May 25
GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- Simulation In Motion – North Dakota (SIM-ND), a mobile project of the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) Simulation Center, the North Dakota Department of Health, and several area health providers, is hosting an “open house” next week.
SIM-ND is a statewide, mobile education system where replica emergency rooms, ambulance holds, and high-fidelity human patient simulators, embedded within several 40-foot trucks, travel the state to help train pre-hospital and hospital personnel in a variety of patient cases.
Members of the UND and Grand Forks communities are encouraged to join SIM-ND staff in the SMHS parking lot for tours and demonstrations of the trucks and their simulation equipment from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25.
Although SIM-ND has been less active since 2020 due to the pandemic, program lead Dr. Jon Allen said that the time is right to ramp up statewide activities again.
“With the ability to take training to the doorstep of the critical access hospitals, EMS units, and military units, we are able to supply desired and needed training that would otherwise be missed,” said Allen, who doubles as director of the SMHS Simulation Center. “And due to the great support of some of the major hospitals in the state and UND, we are able to do this at no charge to the end learner. This is only possible with a great team, as we have at SIM-ND.”
Providers partnering with the SMHS on the SIM-ND program include Altru Health System, Essentia Health-Fargo, Sanford Health-Fargo, and Trinity Health.
Describing a recent on-the-job emergency event, Sanford Health Fargo EMT Coordinator Jaymes Feil noted the value-add of SIM-ND’s mobile training for North Dakota.
“If I had not participated in the SIM-ND training a few months prior,” Feil said, “the outcome could have been drastically different.”
Grant funding from the Leona M. & Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust allowed the Simulation Center and the North Dakota Department of Health to design and implement SIM-ND with four large trucks outfitted with adult, pediatric, infant, and birthing manikins. The tools for teaching are high-fidelity computerized mannequins that talk, breathe, bleed, and can react to medications and other actions of the learners.
The event is free and open to the public.
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Brian James Schill
Director, Office of Alumni & Community Relations
UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences
701.777.2733 direct | 701.777.4305 office
brian.schill@UND.edu | www.und.edu