HealthForce Minnesota Projects
Simulation Education Gains National ExposureDepartment of Labor Grant Advances Workforce Development Efforts
Simulation Education Gains National Exposure
It is Thursday on the Winona State University-Rochester campus and Linda is hard at work instructing her third year nursing students on how to treat a baby ill with any number of ailments. She introduces them to baby Chris who lay on the bed with labored breathing and signs of listlessness. She invites each student to approach the baby and administer medication intravenously. If the students err, it could mean cardiac arrest or even death for baby Chris.
Fortunately, baby Chris is not a real baby. She is a simulated baby. And she provides nursing students at Winona State University-Rochester with the hands-on training needed to be the most effective they can be when they enter the workforce.
Medical simulation is transforming healthcare education in Minnesota. Through a partnership between HealthForce Minnesota and the Minnesota Simulation Alliance, simulation education opportunities are expected to expand and grow statewide.
HealthForce Minnesota will invest more than $80,000 in nursing curriculum simulation next year. The organization has awarded these monies to Winona State University-Rochester’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences and Rochester Community and Technical College Department of Nursing.
Recently, HealthForce Minnesota offered a Simulation Alliance Conference for leading nurse educators from across the state to learn best practices and collaborate with educators, partner institutions and the Minnesota Simulation Alliance.
Simulation techniques are being used in nearly all healthcare disciplines nationwide. Techniques include simulated and virtual patients, mannequin simulators, task-trainers and computers. Advances in education in medicine, surgery, nursing, allied health and other domains in healthcare can be attributed to simulation.
According to the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, simulation has the potential for the evolution of a new teaching paradigm for the new millennium. These techniques do not depend on hospital encounters and can be re-run, stopped, or otherwise altered to enhance educational value. This was illustrated and gained national attention this year when the television show Grey’s Anatomy used an adult MEDI simulator in a story line.
Few argue the positive impacts of medical simulation in healthcare education, but many struggle to meet its costs.
Jane Foote, executive director of HealthForce Minnesota, is pleased to have a hand in offsetting these costs for the state’s higher education institutions.
“By leveraging partnerships and resources, we will continue to make progress in this much needed transformation of our current healthcare system. We can do much together to help meet the workforce and educational needs of our very complex and challenging system,” Foote said.
For more information on medical simulation or HealthForce Minnesota, please contact Dan Olson, director of Marketing, Communications & Healthcare Industry Partnership at HealthForce Minnesota at ddolson@winona.edu or (507) 458-1891.
Department of Labor Grant Advances Workforce Development Efforts
Medical laboratory technicians and clinical laboratory scientists are in high demand in the state of Minnesota. In 2005, it was projected that 2000 new hires will be needed by 2015 in order to accommodate growth and retirement attrition.
Made possible by the federal Department of Labor's Community-Based Job Training Grants Initiative, St. Paul College has joined with MnSCU consortium partners such as HealthForce Minnesota and Healthcare Education - Industry Partnership, Allina Hospital & Clinics, Winona State University, and the University of Minnesota to facilitate career advancement through the restoration of two to four-year program articulation, fast track options, e-learning, Clinical Site Coordination, and laboratory expansion strategies.
"This collaborative effort will expand capacity to provide the maximum number of students clinical coordination of clinical sites," said Dan Olson, director of Marketing, Communications and Healthcare Industry Partnerships. "As a clinical laboratory scientist, I've seen the workforce shortage that we are already facing and know the importance of this grant for our future."
During the grant period, the goal is to double technician and scientist enrollment and to expand enrollment of students who are currently underrepresented in the healthcare field, such as immigrants, minorities, and dislocated workers.
"We will continue our outreach to the K-16 community so students are better educated and knowledgeable of the opportunities available to them in this field," Olson said.
As a result of this grant, that called for the partnering of healthcare and Minnesota state colleges and universities, St. Paul College will receive leveraged funds from industry partners totaling $1,188,500, bringing the project total to $3,187,354.