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The 51����’s Clinical Performance Center (CPC) is an interactive clinical skills education, testing, and evaluation facility located in the Harold and Bibby Alfond Center for Health Sciences on the Portland Campus.

The center has a well-established and ever-expanding Standardized Patient Program as well as a new Patient Simulator Program, both of which focus on putting the patient first.

The CPC is designed and furnished in the model of an outpatient health center, with 20 regular “exam rooms” and two additional dual-purpose examination and clinical simulation rooms. The exam rooms have ceiling cameras and microphones that funnel audiovisual information about student-standardized patient encounters to a large centralized monitoring and recording room for interactive evaluation purposes.

Standardized Patients (SP) are real people trained to portray patients with specific health care needs. SP are individuals of all ages who receive training in health care communications, interpersonal relationship-building, performance expectations of health professions students, and the basics of health care encounters.

Human models are hired to assist clinical faculty with teaching students how to perform sensitive tasks such as breast, pelvic, and rectal exams.

Robotic patient simulators also provide learning opportunities as you work with a team to engage in constructed clinical scenarios of a more critical or emergency nature. The simulators offer ideal circumstances for practicing or assessing the performance of complex and invasive clinical skills, as well as the communications and functioning of the care team itself.

The CPC provides both teaching and testing services to help students develop the clinical, communication, and teamwork skills that are essential to patient-centered care. Designed to support interprofessional learning, the space is used by students across health disciplines, including those in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, Physician Assistant students, and Family Practice residents.

A typical teaching assessment session in the CPC includes a series of one-on-one SP encounters in which learners are asked to select and perform appropriate medical histories and examinations, then document their findings, impressions, and plans. The encounters can be timed and recorded, and students receive copies of the DVD recordings for their own self-assessment and reflective learning. SPs also provide feedback about their experience and exam notes.

Testing sessions differ primarily in that students do not receive individual SP feedback, and the recordings and case-specific performance checklists are graded.

The CPC continues to grow as a hub for interprofessional education. Expanding the role of the Patient Simulator Program and extending the Standardized Patient Program to students across health care disciplines are key priorities. As the CPC evolves, new cases and learning scenarios will reflect real-world health care challenges — preparing 51���� students to deliver more collaborative, patient-focused care.