Nursing sim lab opens on Gainesville Campus

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(UNG: University of North Georgia)

(UNG adds simulation lab to support expansion of four-year degree to Gainesville)

Teresa Conner-Kerr: (Dean, College of Health Sciences and Professions) We're really excited about our expansion to the Gainesville Campus with our nursing cohort. But you know what? It's really about the people of Hall County. When you look at this great expansion that the county is in the middle of and when we see that the number one employer in the county is healthcare -- the major employer being Northeast Georgia Medical Center. We have a really critical role to help supply those nurses that are going to bring good healthcare and wellness to the community.

Katie Parrish: (Associate professor of nursing, MSN, RN, CNE) The Center for Clinical Simulation was developed here on the Gainesville Campus of the University of North Georgia to provide our students with an area for clinical practice in a simulated environment. We've created five patient care areas -- a pediatric and an adult in-patient room setup. An ICU or critical care patient set-up. A labor and delivery and newborn nursery. And an outpatient clinic setting. We also have a simulated apartment setup where students can practice home health visits as well as safety and mobility assessments.

Conner-Kerr: So the virtual hospital's very important to us so that we can bring that interdisciplinary component of training that's more realistic in the way we deliver team-based care. We can't take chances with patients. We don't want to practice on a patient, so what we're trying to do is really take the students through these safe failures, intensive practice so they get it right the first time with a patient.

Parrish: Our high-fidelity patient mannequins have realistic physiology. They can blink, breathe. We can listen to heart and lung sounds as well as bowel sounds, administer medications. We can get realistic

vital signs and they can even talk.

Mannequin: Who are you? What happened? Are you a doctor?

Parrish: This is our high-fidelity birthing simulator which allows students to experience caring for a mother and baby prior to, during and after delivery. The newborn simulator offers realistic options for the students, such as movement, cyanosis. Realistic pulse points such as the brachial, umbilical and fontanel pulses. We can intubate or suction the baby. We can also administer medications and attach to cardiac monitoring.

(UNG: University of North Georgia)

(Produced by the Office of University Relations)