JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It’s being called a game-changer in how nursing students train to save lives, and on Tuesday night, a state-of-the-art simulation center opened for scholars at the University of North Florida’s Brooks College of Health.
The HCA Healthcare Center for Clinical Advancement will provide quality, hands-on training.
“The simulation center allows you to practice any sort of situation you could possibly want, even ones you wouldn’t normally find in the clinical experiences in the hospitals in town,” explained Curt Lox, dean of the Brooks College of Health. ”This absolutely will prepare the next generation of nurses for all of us, really.”
The center includes eight individual simulation rooms, complete with mannequins — including two designed for home health care settings. It also includes:
- 1 birthing suite
- 1 toddler/newborn suite
- 1 emergency room/trauma bay
- 1 separate operating room
- 1 large 6-bed skills lab space
- 6 counseling and debriefing rooms
“It prepares them, it helps their confidence level so that when they’re really out there in the field doing what they do for us, we want confident, prepared individuals, and a simulation center like this will allow us to do that,” Lox said.
About 150 to 200 nursing students will be rotated through the new simulation center this fall. The students are in various levels of UNF’s prelicensure BSN program.
The goal is to expand the program to include advanced registered nurse students in future semesters.