Turnkey or Turn-Away? A Cautionary Tale of Simulation Services
When it comes to simulation center design and support, “turnkey” often sounds good on paper — but what gets delivered is rarely turnkey, and almost never built for real success.
This post explores why superficial, one-size-fits-all solutions fall short, and what centers actually need to thrive.
Turnkey simulation services are everywhere — and for good reason. The idea of a complete, hassle-free setup is appealing to administrators who want fast results and minimal involvement.
But in the real world, simulation centers are not plug-and-play environments.
I’ve worked with dozens of programs that purchased expensive, pre-packaged solutions that failed to meet the real needs of their users. From generic control rooms with no real workflow logic, to equipment bundles that looked impressive during vendor demos but proved unreliable in practice, the result is the same: a center that looks good in photos but falls apart when students and faculty try to use it.
What simulation programs truly need isn’t a “delivered and done” package. They need a partner who understands the complexity of clinical training environments, who listens to their faculty’s needs, maps operational constraints, and builds infrastructure that supports growth and long-term use — not just a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
CALMEDSIM exists to fill that gap.
When I took over my first simulation center, it was already fully built — in theory. Designed to mimic an elite Ivy League facility, it had the gear, the floorplans, and the price tag. But it didn’t work.
What I walked into was chaos:
A fractured space shared by nursing, respiratory therapy, and EMS programs — each with different cultures and expectations.
No onboarding, no documentation, no backups.
Paramedic staff had departed abruptly, leaving behind partially working equipment and institutional gaps.
Internal IT didn’t understand the systems, had a rigid structure that didn’t address any issues timely, and leadership didn’t understand simulation.
I had two weeks before a fully booked calendar kicked off.
So I rebuilt everything. Quietly. Fast. And in full view of seven programs who couldn’t afford a failure.
What Worked
I didn’t start with vendors. I started with users — understanding what each discipline needed.
I restructured the space around actual training flow — not legacy designs.
I fixed or replaced equipment that was unreliable, created fail-safes, and installed off-grid backups.
I wrote the first real documentation the program ever had, created scheduling system that worked, collected data that was used to demosntrate to leadership what we do and the positive impact of all of these efforts.
And I created a structure that worked whether I was there or not.
The Outcome
Over the next two years:
Simulation usage increased 10×.
Programs stopped canceling due to tech or space issues.
We expanded to three campuses, each fully equipped and standardized.
Faculty stopped “hoping it would work” and started counting on it.
The center gained institutional respect and became fully embedded in accreditation efforts.
Why It Matters
That wasn’t a consulting job. That was survival.
And it taught me everything I now bring to other centers.
This field is full of “turnkey” solutions, blueprint copycats, and acronym-chasing. But simulation is local. It’s human. It’s program-specific. And unless you build it for the people who actually use it — it breaks.