LAKE PLACID – A team of seasoned paramedics and a business owner threw their first pitch for a medical simulation center at the planned Global Center for Sports Excellence, at the current site of Adirondack Medical Center at Lake Placid.

The basic facility concept would adapt the hospital’s existing emergency room to provide three ER beds, two simulation rooms and a conference/classroom for up to 30 people.

The two simulation rooms would consist of one simulating ambulance experiences and one that would simulate various scenes.

The future of what exactly will be at the current AMC-Lake Placid building on Church Street is still up in the air. Adirondack Health plans to relocate to a new medical fitness center on Old Military Road, across from the U.S. Olympic Training Center and next to the Uihlein Living Center nursing home. The town of North Elba will get the AMC property as a result and plans to work with the neighboring OTC, USA Luge and Adirondack Health to establish the Global Center of Sports Excellence.

Greg Vis, owner of Hudson Simulation Services in the Albany area, presented the idea to the North Elba Town Council at its monthly meeting Tuesday along with Bill Martin and Bob Elling. Martin is a Saranac Lake resident and a North Country Life Flight paramedic who also works on the Ski Patrol at Whiteface Mountain Ski Center. Eling is a Lake Placid resident who taught the last two paramedic courses at North Country Community College.

Hudson Simulation Services is an official distributor of Simulaids emergency service training products, specializing in integrating simulation training into complex health care organizations.

The trio touted how creating a medical simulation center at the 29 Church St. facility would not cost much and would provide a regional and destination training hub in Lake Placid. Considering the area’s rural nature, they stressed how the facility would benefit emergency personnel who could be trained on rare situations they may not otherwise come across until they occur.

“When you think about this, we live in the Adirondacks. Doctors in the Bronx, there is high probability, high consequence (of emergency situations),” Martin said. “Here it is low probability, high consequence. And the things that are low probability, high consequence are the things that need to be trained – because they are not ready for it.”

Vis also touted how the center could provide a type of “medical tourism”for Lake Placid economically. Elling termed it a “destination medical program,” and the trio said it would go well with the village’s ability to bring in conferences.

“The point is that we have certain levels of training that are just not – we don’t have enough people or resources, so we have to be creative up here,” Elling said. “We have to pool our resources and do something regionally. This is a perfect example of doing things regional.”

The group’s target of this kind of destination training would include Olympic, endurance and recreational sports medicine; continuing education of civilian education; simulated wilderness medicine; training for NCCC’s nursing program and other regional hospitals; and rural emergency medicine training. The group added that a traveling trailer component of the simulation center could also be used to to train in rural and wilderness environments.

The group estimates that at 80 percent capacity, the center would create 3,000 visits, something they estimated at more than $1 million in additional tourism revenue for the region. They said they anticipated 80 percent capacity could be reached in the center’s second year.

The trio said they have been in communication with NCCC nursing program director Charles Van Anden about the idea and said the simulation center would take up a quarter or less of the current building at 29 Church Street. Still in the conceptual stage, they estimated a maximum cost of $2 million, likely closer to a half-million or less if the simulation center were able to use existing facilities. Vis said the group would be prepared to self-fund but is also open to a public-private partnership.

Olympic Training Center director and town Councilman Jack Favro said Tuesday the trio would also have to present the idea to the state Olympic Regional Development Authority and the United States Olympic Committee, the main agencies behind the planned Global Center for Sports Excellence.

“Everything is up in the air; nothing is nailed down,” he said. “I think we are at a point where we are going to start sitting down and make a map of the plan of what we are going to do from the town’s perspective.

“It’s going to be what the sports want, what ORDA makes it,” he continued, “but also community stuff.”

The town council, led by Supervisor Roby Politi, seemed supportive and excited by the idea.

“This makes a lot of sense,” Politi said. “One of the things we don’t have is we don’t have the 24-hour emergency room. The thing is, I don’t think we are going to be making any decision ourselves – this board – as to who’s going into that building. We are going to be a contributor to that property to ORDA and USOC for that use, but I think your next chore is selling those folks what you want to do.”