To support the educational and research missions of the university, the Department of Healthcare Simulation has developed several resources available to RFUMS students and faculty. The learning resources at the RFUMS Center for Advanced Simulation in Healthcare at the Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital and North Chicago centers create a Virtual Health System that simulates many facets of clinical practice.

The Department also hosts a number of software-based simulation programs and tutorials designed to enhance clinical decision making and guide skill development. These include a number of virtual patient simulations (interactive computer-based patient encounters) as well as interactive tutorials focused on specific skills such as heart and lung auscultation, EKG, and imaging interpretation.

University programs use these resources to meet a number of training goals including:

• Enhancing the correlation between basic science concepts and clinical practice.
• Encouraging students to learn from their successes and mistakes in a safe learning environment without risk to actual patients.
• Assessing student competence in specific critical care scenarios as part of clinical performance examinations.
• Incorporating Standardized Patient scenarios to improve student history taking, physical exam, patient education, and interpersonal skills (end-of-life issues, giving bad news, communication with family, interaction with other medical staff during a critical event).
• Improving the health care team by fostering interprofessional activities, teamwork, and group problem-solving strategies, using emergency care scenarios.