Simulation lab expansion provides Cox College students with an enhanced hands-on education
Cox College has been home to a patient care simulation lab for over a decade, but in the summer of 2021, the lab underwent a sizeable renovation.
Cox College has been home to a patient care simulation lab for over a decade, but in the summer of 2021, the lab underwent a sizeable renovation.
A patient care simulation lab is where students apply knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to mock nursing scenarios featuring high-tech, anatomically correct patient simulator manikins. Prior to the renovation, the lab had five patient rooms with four debrief rooms, now there are nine patient rooms and seven debrief rooms.
The lab is home to 10 patient simulators that vary in age, gender and ethnicity, and each has a different function of care that the students can learn from.
Stacy Bohn, Cox College Simulation Lab Coordinator, says the lab is a great learning opportunity and the upgrades provide even better experiences for students across Cox College.
“The expansion allows us to nearly double the capacity we were operating at before, which allows more students – including outside of the nursing program – to use and benefit from the hands-on experience the simulation lab provides,” says Bohn.
The simulation lab renovation was completed in December 2021, and it was funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration through a grant prepared by the CoxHealth Foundation. The project cost around $1.9 million.
Although open for only a few months, students are already experiencing the advantage of the additions to the simulation lab. Cox College Student Hannah Antonacci says gaining this experience, without worrying about the risk to real patients, is key for her nursing education.
“Our fellow classmates observe or take part in the simulation as family members, and I think that it definitely gets us out of our comfort zone and be able to think critically about things that we might have not thought of in the past,” says Antonacci.
Simulation lessons are broken down into three parts: brief, simulation, debrief. The brief goes over the basic needs of the hypothetical patient, and instructors will program the patient manikins based on those needs.
The simulation includes two or three students that will provide care for the patient based on those preprogrammed needs or instructors will create a situation that arises during the visit. Once the simulation is complete, the class will gather to discuss the simulation and key lessons in the debrief.
The lab is also home to a variety of medical equipment students would see in the hospital from patient monitors to two Drager ventilators and two Omnicell towers.
“I think that the more experience as a nursing student that you get to do with patients is helpful. As much as you get to learn things in the clinical setting like at the hospital, there are not as many hands-on experiences. In this environment you get to only have those hands-on experiences and that feedback from it. It is good to be able to be in an environment where it is laid back in the sense that you can make mistakes, learn from them, and know what to do right in the long run,” says Antonacci.
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