Background: Patient-centered professional practice and technology assessment research performed in health professional schools’ clinical simulation centers is a novel concept.  Opportunities can be created for multidisciplinary collaboration relative to evaluation of medication regimen and device complexity.  Micro-level costs can then be assigned and economic analysis conducted in a more precise fashion than in traditional clinical trials or database outcomes analysis. Methods: One university’s pharmacy and nursing schools’ clinical simulation centers were used in two separate projects to conduct time-and-motion and activity-based costing analyses specific to work-related activities consisting of nurse, pharmacist, and/or patient medication dispensing, preparation, administration and/or storage.  Projects consisted of time and cost differences related to 1) three proton pump inhibitor dosage forms and seven administration methods, and 2) seven recombinant human growth hormone administration methods/devices.  Performance-based time data were then used to determine personnel/patient opportunity time and supply costs associated with different forms of medications and delivery devices.  Simulations were developed and used to hold independent variables constant so only observed differences between medications and/or device types could be assessed.  Statistical and micro-economic cost analyses were conducted specific to each type of medication and/or device. Results: Processes and results show two detailed examples as case studies of how simulation-based research may be used to assess health care processes at the micro level.  The advantages of isolating processes of interest from the day-to-day complexity of patient care are demonstrated.  Simulations may also represent an efficient assessment alternative of health care processes at the micro level with potential for projection to the macro level as compared to live, direct observation, cost-intensive, patient-centered care practice evaluations.  Conclusions: Simulation-based time-and-motion and activity-based cost analyses allowed detailed micro-level time, workload, and supply evaluations that may be projected to the macro level.  Professional schools’ simulation laboratories offer appropriate settings for such studies.