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SPeCIaL Feature Michael Holder, Jr., MD, is vice president of the ABIA Center for Simulation and Integrated Healthcare Education. ABIA: in Action Innovation By Alex Strauss 12 | Cleveland/Akron/Canton MD News In the Center for Community Health Improvement are representatives from area medical centers and universities working together to develop sustainable models to improve medical access, delivery and outcomes for the medically underserved populations in Akron. And in the Center for Simulation and Integrated Healthcare Education (CSIHE), which encompasses three of the ABIA headquarters��� four floors, you���ll see an assortment of healthcare professionals and students training in a mock operating room, emergency department, intensive care unit and obstetrical unit with robotic mannequins, or honing their diagnostic skills with patient actors in one of eight standardized exam rooms. ���We like to think of our five centers as hubs of collaboration where we bring together nurses, physicians, entrepreneurs, etc. to identify and solve problems, ��� MDNEWS.COM ��� JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2013 train and try out solutions,��� says ABIA president/CEO Frank L. Douglas, MD, PhD. ���It���s a place where business, education, and translational research all are happening in sort of an organic way.��� Simulation and Integrated Healthcare Education As the largest of the five Centers, the comprehensive 30,000 square foot Center for Simulation and Integrated Healthcare Education is pioneering a new approach to medical education, offering training in everything from emergent and urgent care to surgery and disaster response in unique, interprofessional teams. ���We train at least two or three disciplines together at a time,��� says Michael Holder, Jr., MD, vice president of the CSIHE, which he refers to as a workforce development center. ���We really like to get doctors, nurses, pre-hospital providers and PHOTOS �� SMITHBERGER PHOTOGRAPHY, NORTH CANTON IF YOU WANT TO see innovation in action, take a tour of the new $13.3 million home of the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron (ABIA), and prepare to be wowed. With all five centers for healthcare-related research, education and development now under one roof at 47 North Main Street in downtown Akron, the ABIA collaborative environment is bustling with activity. In the new center, you���ll find a cadaver lab where physicians, medical students, inventors and industry representatives are learning new skills and physicians are experimenting with new products and devices ��� some of which came directly from the ABIA���s Medical Device Development Center and Clinical Trials and Product Development Center while others were provided by national and international technology companies.