Inside SimVET: a $43 million Veterans Affairs simulation hospital

Inside a sprawling $43 million Veterans Affairs facility equipped with operating rooms, intensive care units and an outpatient clinic, there are no patients. At least not any real ones. 

The 53,000-square-foot building sits minutes away from the Orlando International Airport in Florida, and it’s called the National Center for Simulation Validation, Evaluation and Testing, or SimVET. It serves as the primary hub where teams of front-line health-care workers from the VA travel to practice procedures and pilot new technologies, all without posing unnecessary risks to patients.

For instance, if a team of clinicians wants to adjust their response to opioid overdoses or test out a new artificial intelligence tool, they can repeatedly simulate the process at SimVET. VA officials told CNBC that by practicing in a controlled environment, health-care workers can iron out problems and ensure that new ideas are feasible and safe to implement. 

SimVET, which opened in 2016, serves as an example of how simulation within health care has become increasingly common and more sophisticated in recent years. As health systems are looking to evaluate hundreds of new AI tools that have recently arrived on the market, facilities like SimVET can help cut through the noise.