Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center

The University of Toledo’s Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center is equipped with an i-Space™—the world’s first five-sided seamless LED virtual reality center for medical training, education, and research—and a virtual hospital outfitted with human patient simulators, state-of-the-art clinical equipment, and observation, control and debriefing rooms. The five-sided CAVE required a four-inch-thick glass floor weighing two tons. The four-story building also includes a three-story atrium with skylight; 3D/virtual CAD walls (one curved, two flat-screened); simulated homecare environment; a theater; inter-professional collaboration workspaces; global learning suites; innovation labs and administrative offices.

The technology helps learners better understand anatomical size and structural relationships, provides views that could not be seen in two dimensions, provides practice with virtual models and/or procedures with minimal impact on environment, and allows the learner to control his or her pace and direction.

The goal was to create a resource destination for students and staff at all the University’s colleges, the University Medical Center, and area hospitals, and to make the technology available to a wide range of community groups, including the Toledo museum of Art, the Toledo Zoo, the public schools, and the military. The health science campus alone enrolls more than 3,000 students. While the cave automatic virtual environment can hold only a handful of people at a time, the room with the 28-by-9-foot curved CAD wall (containing 18 LED cubes controlled by nine computers) can be viewed by as many as 40 at a time.

The Virtual Immersive Reality (VIR) Simulation Center is located on the first floor; the Advanced Clinical Simulation Center on the second; and on the third, the Progressive Anatomy & Surgical Skills Center, with 15 surgical bays, procedure rooms, surgical teaching stations, and a surgical skills dry lab. The Modeling and Simulation School is on the lower level.

The facility is tracking LEED Gold certification.