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1 out of 10 babies is born premature. Determined to improve these outcomes, neonatologist Dr. Jens-Christian Schwindt founded SIMCharacters in 2012: “Our mission at SIMCharacters is to improve the quality of care for critically ill preterm and newborn babies by advancing the realism and effectiveness of training simulators.” The SIMCharacters team knows that creating High Emotion Simulation requires understanding and empathy towards the teams, families, and programs caring tirelessly for their little patients. With that in mind, we developed our first preterm simulator Paul. With his birth, we took the next step towards a brighter future for medical simulation.
With SIMCharacters, we have set ourselves the goal of sustainably improving the quality of care for critically ill children worldwide by developing highly realistic simulators.
SIMCharacters started with the vision of founder Dr. Jens-Christian Schwindt to improve the outcomes of more than 15 million preterm births per year worldwide. At the heart of this vision stood the idea to provide healthcare professionals with a highly realistic tool to learn/train/simulate life-saving procedures for critical care emergencies. This resulted in the development of the most realistic preterm simulator to date, which goes beyond high fidelity. Our high emotion preterm simulator PAUL.
Hopefully, we came one step closer to realizing this vision in a sustainable way with the help of our little Paul.
The journey of SIMCharacters and Paul begins in 2010 at the Medical University of Vienna...
How safe is modern medicine?
Providing high quality care for a preterm baby is a uniquely complex and time-sensitive process, which is extremely challenging for inter-professional neonatal healthcare teams. Although preterm birth remains the most common cause of death among infants, preemies weighing only 500 to 1,000 grams can survive as healthy babies when cared for by highly trained healthcare professionals.
Yet how can these professionals effectively learn life-saving procedures during such delicate critical care emergencies? Simulation is quickly becoming the modern way to educate and train healthcare professionals because it allows for the safe high-stakes practice of behavioral, cognitive and technical skills. Previously, such realistic technology had been impossible in the small body of a 27-week-old infant. Together with his team, SIMCharacters founder Dr. Jens-Christian Schwindt has spent many years working as a doctor and consultant in neonatology. He and his team have treated numerous children in lifethreatening situations - particularly premature babies. One fateful night shift changed his life forever. And his vision to drastically improve the outcomes of more than 15 million preterm births per year was born.... Watch Jens' TEDx talk about the importance of simulation training in modern medicine.