SPOKANE — Students in nursing, pharmacy, and medicine at the Riverpoint Campus will benefit in the future from the gold standard in active learning and evaluation in health care education: a human simulation lab. Congressionally directed funding of $1.5 million for Nursing Building technology was included in the Senate’s Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill, announced late last month by U.S. Senator Patty Murray.
The federal funding will be used to purchase major research, instruction, and communication equipment for the Nursing Building now under construction at Riverpoint, including equipment for the Inland Northwest Human Simulation Lab. Ongoing staffing and operation of the equipment will be funded through other means.
College officials are working with community partners to leverage the federal investment through additional private donations to launch and operate the simulation lab. The lab will serve not only students in the health professions, but also clinical professionals throughout the region, helping hospitals meet staff accreditation standards.
“Our emphasis in the academic health center developing at Riverpoint is on integrated, multidisciplinary, and inter-professional education,” said Brian Pitcher, Chancellor, WSU Spokane and Vice Provost for Health Sciences for WSU statewide. “The technology purchases enabled through this targeted federal investment will contribute to the education of students in pharmacy, medicine, and nursing, learning side by side. It will also strengthen the bond between the medical community and the University. WSU Spokane is proud to host this innovative collaboration in our expanding portfolio of core infrastructure for biomedical, life and health sciences research and education.”
Human patient simulation (HPS) uses life-sized mannequins that actually breathe, have bowel sounds, lung sounds, pulses and a heart beat. All HPS life signs and sounds, including patient speech, are controlled by a technician at a computer, simulating different disease processes, varying vital signs and deterioration or improvement in patient states.
The ability of health care professionals to respond appropriately to a rapidly deteriorating patient care situation takes time, opportunity and repetition something frequently missing in traditional clinical experiences. Simulation completes the educational spectrum for health care students by allowing them to practice skills repeatedly, and to respond to programmed scenarios they may rarely, if ever, encounter in a rotation through any one clinical setting.
“The clinical simulation equipment that we will now be able to purchase enables nursing students to understand rapidly changing clinical situations in ways not previously possible,” said Patricia Butterfield, dean of the WSU Intercollegiate College of Nursing. “These funds will also help equip our research laboratories, so that students are able to learn about both laboratory and community-based research. The students we educate today will serve the public for many years to come.”
The use of human simulation mannequins in pharmacy education is not nearly as widespread as in nursing education, and the WSU College of Pharmacy will be one of the earliest innovators through their participation in this partnership.
“We have already rewritten our curriculum, making the use of human simulation integral to instruction, and plan to use the Sim Lab to do clinical research” said Linda Garrelts MacLean, chair of the department of pharmacotherapy that teaches pharmacists. “The opportunity for our faculty to work with educators in nursing and medicine already enhances our competitiveness for federal and state grant funding, and having access to this technology will add to that. I’m not going too far when I say that this is revolutionary for pharmacy education, and WSU is at the forefront.”
In announcing the appropriation, Sen. Murray said the funding will allow the College of Nursing to grow to serve more students.
“This is a victory for two of our state’s top goals: growing our workforce and providing better access to quality healthcare,” she said. “More well-trained, professional nurses will mean better access to quality care for more Washington state residents.”
WSU Pres. Elson S. Floyd offered thanks to Senator Murray and the rest of the federal delegation for their support of WSU’s Nursing College.
“This federal investment in the future of clinical education will serve as a key community resource to improve patient safety in all settings throughout the state of Washington,” he said.
Now that Sen. Murray’s funding has passed the committee, it will move to the Senate floor for consideration.
Pacific Northwest Inlander article on the Simulation Center:
https://www.nursing.wsu.edu/documents/0206_INL_17.pdf
