Avkin Ensures Wearable Simulator Integration, Technical Support for Simulationists

Successful clinical simulation programs need to become familiar with the resources available to them and learn to understand how they can be used to benefit their efforts. For example, Avkin, a Wilmington-based healthcare simulation vendor, is on a mission to maximize medical simulation education and product integration by ensuring that customers understand how to correctly use the wearable simulators the company has developed. As Avkin’s leadership team understands the importance of standing out regarding customer service, the company continues to emphasize that educators’ time should be spent focusing on their learners – not waiting on hold during customer service phone calls. Thus, Avkin has hired multiple CHSE-certified educators to ensure simulationists’ needs are met from an integration standpoint, as well as relating to technical support.

When a customer buys a product from Avkin, the customer success team immediately sets up an integration call with the customer so that they can talk through the best ways to integrate the wearable simulator into the institution’s curriculum. Integration is necessary to protect the investment of the institution and maximize the use of the new wearable simulation product across professional and educational uses.

In the past, industry standards have typically expected customers to pay for these additional resources, but Avkin wants to change this thinking and elevate customer service in terms of healthcare simulation products and service delivery. According to Avkin, many educators and simulations have claimed that the healthcare simulation industry is currently moving into a “post plastic era” and emphasize the need to move away from clunky plastic manikins.


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Alternatively, simulationists are now investing in the new era of clinical simulation and starting standardized patient programs. Therefore, they are turning to the purchase of Avkin wearables to better meet the needs of their learners. Avkin’s customer success team is ready to help make this transition as smooth as possible.

When Amy Cowperthwait, a simulationist from the University of Delaware , founded Avkin in 2016, she was notably frustrated by what was currently available on the market. She knew that there had to be a better way to educate learners. For this reason, she trailblazed the healthcare simulation industry and one of her first orders of business was to establish Avkin’s customer success team to “flip the clinical simulation industry on its head.”

Cowperthwait knew the struggles of sitting on hold with a broken healthcare simulation manikin and the frustration of products sitting on a shelf not being used. No more, she demanded!

“With the investment simulationists are making, they should not be nickel and dimed to get it integrated into their simulation program,” said Cowperthwait.


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Toady, the customer success team at Avkin is led by Kim Anderson, BPS, NRP, CHSE, who has been with the company for three years.

“We have worked in simulation and can understand the struggles our customers see on a regular basis. As a team, we continually seek ways to improve our customers’ success. This department is under continuous quality improvement so that we can help simulationists maximize their time and investment,” said Anderson.

Working under Anderson is Lauren Gaddis, who holds a master’s degree in medical simulation and is working towards her CHSE certification. Gaddis, a new member of the Avkin customer success team, is motivated to help customers develop a successful simulation using  Avkin products.

“I enjoy conversations on how to better achieve that fidelity they are looking for with our devices and offer my best advice on providing a greater learning experience for their students,” shared Gaddis.

Overall, the customer success team works together to meet individually with all of Avkin’s customers to assist in making sure that the clinical simulation wearables are fully integrated into their programs. Customers describe their old manikin-based experience as frustrating and overwhelming, whereas Avkin customers are thrilled with the personalized attention they receive from their peers on the integration calls. They have described this process as a “breath of fresh air,” and are happy to be talking to someone who understands the daily struggles and reality of working in healthcare simulation. Appreciating the extra attention Avkin puts into making sure they reach success with this new modality of clinical simulation.



“Avkin is an innovative company full of heart and creativity that has been really positive for us. The story of how they began and the culture of the company is a testimony to the quality and return that we have seen working with Avkin and their products,” shared Sami Rahman, MEd, MSN, RN, the director of simulation at Blinn College.

As a company, Avkin is eager to see the growth that comes from collaborative efforts heading in the future. With such a high customer focus, the company expects to see simulationists flocking to this new technology in the next few years. Additionally, with assistance from the customer success team, Avkin is excited to see company programs continue to integrate simulated participants and wearable simulators.

More About Avkin

Avkin is a manufacturer of wearable devices for use in healthcare simulations and is a consultant for standardized patient programs. ​​Founded by a nurse educator, Avkin provides a simulation solution that combines the best of high-fidelity mannequins and the realism of standardized patients for the most authentic simulation experience possible. The company believes that the key to success in patient-centered care is practitioner training through realistic healthcare simulations and that human interaction is irreplaceable in clinical education.

Rooted in the Latin words, “Akin” and “Vera,” Avkin is the combination of the two. With Akin meaning ‘of similar character,’ and vera meaning ‘truth,’ our goal has always been to create the best quality products that allow for education to be ‘of similar character’ and ‘true’ to what the learners will experience in real life.

Learn more about Avkin Clinical Simulation Consulting 


Today’s article was guest authored by Ankit Patel, Marketing Associate at Avkin.

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