NAIT, CAE Healthcare enter into research partnership

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology has entered into a research partnership that will ensure health science students have access to the latest in medical simulation technology, the institute says.

The deal with CAE Healthcare, a training services company focusing on medical simulators for schools, hospitals and defence forces, will see NAIT receive discounted purchasing options on CAE’s range of products to use in its School of Health and Life Science Centre on its main campus in Edmonton, faculty dean Rick Trimp said Wednesday.

NAIT will also act as a place where the company can showcase its continuing advancements in medical simulation in a working education environment, Trimp said.

Alberta’s largest polytechnic was also certified by the company as a “CAE Healthcare Centre of Excellence” which “recognizes the polytechnic as a global leader in advanced medical simulation.”

“NAIT has a vision to be a globally leading polytechnic,” Trimp said.

“This is one of the things we believe sets us apart from everyone else.

“CAE Healthcare and NAIT have mutual drives and goals to improve patient safety (and) to enhance education for health-care providers.”

Around 2,500 students attend 18 programs at the multi-disciplinary simulation centre each year, Trimp said.

Trimp said NAIT was “moving towards a more realistic environment for people to learn” and that the partnership further improves NAIT’s “scaffolding approach” to education where students go from theory lessons in a classroom into a simulation environment to test those skills.

Equipment being used by NAIT includes patient simulators that react to anesthesia and other medications, a childbirth simulator as well as surgical cut suits worn by actors to “provide students the ability to practice emergency and trauma procedures.”