kidSTAR Simulation Lab

The kidSTAR Simulation Lab is an 850-square-foot teaching facility housed in the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. It serves as a forum to train physicians, trainees, nurses, ancillary clinical staff and medical students at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. 

The lab replicates both ward and ICU bedspaces, with fully functional headwalls, medical gases and monitoring equipment. An integrated audiovisual system allows for the playback of simulated events to augment learning. The location of the lab within the hospital allows for more frequent attendance by busy clinical staff. 

The lab is also the base from which kidSTAR staff conduct in-situ (in the clinical environment) simulations across the entire institution and at partner hospitals. At least half of our simulation activities are in-situ, allowing for learners to participate in events with their normal work team in their usual environment. In-situ simulations are valuable opportunities to identify barriers to safe and effective care and unrecognized (latent) system deficits. 

To support these simulations, kidSTAR has a broad range of educational resources, including high fidelity simulators (newborn, infant, child and adult), CPR mannequines (child and adult), skills trainers and simulated patient actors (standardized patients).