The college recently purchased an artificial intelligence-enhanced patient simulator manikin known as the HAL S5301, built by Gaumard Scientific. Hal, as he is named, joins the family of hyper-realistic manikins in the William G. and Marlys Smith Simulation Center.

Hal is the first AI-enhanced patient simulator in Iowa and the upper Midwest region, said Iowa Central President Jesse Ulrich. Large medical centers like the Mayo Clinic and University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics don’t even have a HAL.

The manikin cost $135,500, Ulrich said.

In addition to the health sciences students — including nursing, emergency medicine and radiology — staff at UnityPoint use the simulation center for competency testing, patient care orientation and continuing education.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Iowa Central Community College mascot Triton tests out Iowa Central’s new training AI manikin on Wednesday at UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center in Fort Dodge

On Friday, Iowa Central and UnityPoint hosted an open house to unveil Hal. State Rep. Ann Meyer, R-Fort Dodge, who is a registered nurse and former clinical nursing instructor at the college, gave a demonstration of a patient assessment with Hal.

Hal is about as close to a real human patient as it gets, said Julie Mertens, simulation center coordinator. He can cry, sweat, bleed, breathe, talk and blink. He can have a seizure, go into cardiac arrest and even present signs of a stroke. He even has a pulse and a heartbeat.

“It’s remarkable what he can do,” she said.

What makes Hal different from the other realistic patient simulator manikins on the floor is that he can be operated by artificial intelligence, so there isn’t a need to have an instructor sitting in a control room using computer software to control the manikin’s movement, speech and physical response to the medical care given by the nursing students.

“Pretty much everything that we do on a real patient, we can do on Hal,” Mertens said. “It’s a new step of realism.”

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
The HAL manikin is the most recent investment into the simulation center, which opened at UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center in 2016

Hal is programmed to know his patient information — name, date of birth, medical history and other background — and it will use AI to learn everything else from the student and instructor conversations.

“It’s such a great time to be a health sciences student,” Mertens said.

According to Ulrich, Iowa Central has about 150 nursing students this year.

“Fortunately, with the simulation center that we have here, not all of their clinical hours have to be bedside — some of it can be substituted,” he said. “So that allows us to put more students through in a year than if we just had clinical rotations.”

Students are able to use the labs in the simulation center to practice nursing and clinical skills in a much more forgiving environment.

“This is a place where they can make mistakes and not kill anybody,” Meyer said. “This is really one of the best places to learn.”

The addition of the HAL manikin is just the most recent investment into the simulation center, which opened at the hospital in 2016.

“We’ve invested three-quarters of a million dollars this year alone to replace all the manikins up here in this unit, and that doesn’t include the new technology that we’re putting in the new career academy that has the health sciences focus in Storm Lake, and in Webster City,” Ulrich said. “We’re investing a lot in our health care students because it’s obviously desperately needed right now.”