About CHIPS
The Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Simulation (CHIPS) is a 45,000 square-foot, stand-alone building for healthcare simulation and interprofessional education.
CHIPS is accredited by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH). Achieving SSH accreditation signifies that CHIPS is committed to delivering high-quality simulations that prepare clinicians for the diverse array of healthcare situations and procedures they will encounter in the patient-care setting.
The state-of-the-art facility opened in 2018 and is designed to meet the simulation needs of all UTHSC students, residents, professional staff, and clinical partners. The award-winning center is staffed by an internationally recognized team of simulation experts. CHIPS is a past recipient of the Innovation Award from Memphis Magazine and Inside Memphis Business magazine. This award honors CHIPS for delivering cutting-edge simulation training across all healthcare professions. Additionally, CHIPS was recognized in Becker’s Hospital Review list of 34 hospitals and health systems with great simulation education programs. This list recognizes programs with cutting-edge technologies, lifelike scenarios, and safe environments that build provider confidence through practical application.
CHIPS is dedicated to improving the quality of healthcare delivery through education, research, assessment and enhanced clinical skills with simulated patients (people trained to portray patients), high-fidelity manikins, and virtual reality settings.
CHIPS supports residents and students from the six colleges at UTHSC – Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Health Professions, Nursing, Medicine, and Pharmacy – to train together in simulation settings to develop their skills in delivering team-based health care, which is the proven model for the highest-quality care today. Using the high-tech manikins, simulated settings and learning with simulated patients, CHIPS offers state-of-the-art training under the safest conditions possible.
The building is the only one of its kind in Tennessee and one of only a handful in the country. Each floor of the three-story building is dedicated to a different aspect of simulation training. The first floor includes skills labs with multiple stations to allow learners to focus on clinical skills and assessments. There is also a simulated home environment, where learners can practice delivering in-home patient care and a space dedicated to virtual simulations. The second floor houses a simulated acute-care setting resembling a hospital environment with patient rooms and a variety of manikins that can be used to simulate everything from surgery to labor and delivery. The third-floor features the Robert J. Kaplan, MD, Center for Clinical Skills and a simulated community pharmacy. The Kaplan Center for Clinical Skills includes 24 exam rooms where learners interact with simulated patients to enhance clinical skills, including physical examination, medical history taking, and interpersonal communication.