— HAGERSTOWN — He coughs, he talks and if you get too close you might wear his lunch.

Meet SimMan, anything but your average mannequin.

The SimMan, an advanced patient simulator, has been implemented at Washington County Hospital to improve team training and further student education, hospital officials said.

Julianne Harp, clinical educator for perianesthesia services and a registered nurse, said plans for this project are finally making waves after five-years.

“We had identified a SimMan of this sort as a good teaching tool,” she said. “So we started to look into it.”

She said during the five-year wait, she searched for funding to make her plan more than just a simulation.

The SimMan that was purchased cost an estimated $35,000, Harp said. Funding for the venture was donated from several different avenues, including the Antietam Health Care Foundation.

The funding, she said, also covered the cost of a two-day extensive training session in May on how to properly operate SimMan.

“We were able to pay for eight educators to learn to use SimMan,” Harp said. “Recent graduates use SimMan for skill building. It is also for any staff member to practice competencies. We have a lot of possibilities for what we can actually use him for.”

Meet SimMan

Harp said SimMan’s “conditions” can be varied through different computer programs administered by a nurse or other health care professional.

SimMan, she said, can even wheeze as if he has asthma.

“He talks. He coughs,” she said. “He can say ’ouch’ - that’s one of his favorite ones. Everyone is amazed when he comes in and says, ’I don’t feel so good.”’

Joan Fortney, administrative director for emergency and trauma, said a benefit of using SimMan is its ability to simulate emergency situations.

“With SimMan, we can simulate injuries,” she said. “Whereas, we might not be able to find a human with those injuries.”

The simulated man, Fortney said, can perform functions that an actual human can not, including vomiting on command and voluntarily ejecting himself into life-threatening situations. This gives trainees exposure to situations they might not have the chance to experience otherwise.

SimMan’s benefits

“(Using SimMan) could lower fatalities,” Fortney said. “It also lowers the rate of complications. We can practice our response to emergency situations. We can simulate him going through cardiac arrest and bring the whole team in, and it betters their team work.”

Fortney said SimMan is proof that evolving technology will be a benefit to the medical field. She said tools have changed dramatically since she was training to become a registered nurse.

“We used to simulate giving injections through an orange,” Fortney said. “This was supposed to simulate (a needle) going through the skin. (SimMan) is much more lifelike. It’s much closer than anything we can get with a book or standing there practicing verbally.”

Fortney said as more funding becomes available, staff members have plans to broaden the uses of SimMan.

“One of the other nice things is he’s expandable,” she said. “So we can buy different things for him. We (purchased) the basic model hoping we could can expand as more funding comes along. Hopefully, we can expand our family in the future.”

This family, Fortney said, refers to an entire line of SimMan products, including SimBaby and its two other mid-sized siblings. The latest SimMan model, which has portable capabilities and can be taken virtually anywhere, nearly doubles the cost of the version used by Washington County professionals — costing an estimated $75,000.

Harp said it was not a necessity to purchase the portable SimMan. She said the two machines perform the same basic functions, and it is important that the staff master fundamentals of the machine before extending their practice to other machines.

“We felt we didn’t need (portable SimMan)” Harp said. “He’s tethered, which means he has to be attached to electricity, (but) we wanted to go with the tried and true.”

Fortney said SimMan has been a vital asset to the hospital, and with new additions in the future his uses will continue to grow.

“I think we are pretty passionate about him and enthusiastic about having him in our family,” she said.