Students in the Washington School of Practical Nursing program at Four Rivers Career Center now have access to a state-of-the-art clinical simulation lab located in their building, thanks to a $400,000 grant to help build, equip, and set up the lab.
The Practical Nursing Program hosted an open house for the simulation lab on Friday, March 11. Pictures from the event are below.
Due to COVID, students in the practical nursing program were unable to attend clinical rotations in acute care hospitals during the last half of the 2019-20 class.
Chris Redd, Washington School of Practical Nursing
Administrator, was made aware of a government grant that would assist higher learning programs with, “what do you need to help navigate COVID?”
“We determined that if we couldn’t attend clinical rotations again for some reason, we would need a simulation lab of our own,” Redd said. “We went to the school board to present the grant as an option and they gave us the go ahead to pursue the grant. We were given a grant for a little over $400,000 to help us set up the simulation lab.”
Construction of the simulation lab started in the summer of 2021. WSPN students began using the lab in the fall of 2021.
The lab is located on the first floor of Four Rivers Career Center down the hallway from the front entrance.
Construction included turning an office suite into the new simulation lab.
Heather Foster has been hired as a part time simulation lab coordinator.
“Heather’s role is to help us set up simulations and align them with our current curriculum,” Redd said. “She is a former graduate of our program who has continued her education over the years and now is working on her Masters in Nursing Education.”
It’s a goal of the nursing program to have a simulation associated with each course throughout the year.
“We hope to connect with Mercy Washington to utilize some of their nursing educators to conduct Code Blue and rapid response simulations with our students just prior to graduation,” Redd said. “As we grow and develop our simulation lab, I would like to have the School District of Washington nurses be able to participate in simulations that would help in their role, such as pediatric asthma and diabetes simulations.”
