Concordia’s new satellite nursing campus, located on Research Boulevard near MoPac, enriches nursing students through skills and simulation learning with some of the newest technology available.
By Gabby Campo, MSN, RN
Yesterday’s nurses could never have imagined the level of technology and rapid responsiveness that care settings require today. The pace of innovation and the steady demand to relieve our current nursing shortage is unrelenting. The COVID-19 pandemic
has forced nurses into a new realm of challenges and solutions.
As a nursing educator at Concordia University Texas since 2018, I continue to feel an increasing responsibility to help mold tomorrow’s nurses through skills and simulation performance to prepare them to hit the ground running during what we know
is an exceptional time in American and global healthcare. In order for Concordia’s nursing program to continue its forward-thinking approach, an investment into the expansion of our nursing facilities was required.
Evaluation and Design
In the 10-bed clinical skills lab, student Chris Jones practices performs a cardiac assessment on a “patient” that responds with a heartbeat, pulse and breathing sounds.
As we evaluated our program facilities several years ago, we could see the lab education space we shared with other local nursing programs would no longer serve our future needs. Our program was expanding, and our resources needed to expand with it, including
our skills lab, simulation and classroom spaces.
Concordia’s vision began with site planning in early 2019, and construction of the space followed in fall 2019. As we prepared to move into our new site the end of summer 2020, we redesigned the already-constructed spaces to consider new COVID-19 restrictions.
Our skills and simulation classes were now going to be online; however, we knew the students would need to get hands-on practice as much as we could safely allow.
Our nursing faculty came together with administration to identify ways we could utilize all spaces of the building to create the best learning environment possible. We turned classroom and debriefing room spaces into dry skills labs. We spread our hospital
beds and manikins out to create a wet skills lab. We brought more manikins over from our main campus and bought more task trainers to support offering multiple skills at a single skills station where students could work independently. We bought plexiglass
barriers that we could put on bedside tables and move around to observe the students.
We implemented COVID-19 modifications throughout the facility, including the transformation of the lobby and student lounge area into a check-in area to screen anyone entering the facility. Plexiglass barriers went up between student and staff contact
areas, and we added hands-free thermometers. We placed directional signage to indicate six-foot spacing, entrances and exits, the flow of traffic and faculty-only areas.
Implementation and Launch
Prior to the fall 2020 start, we oriented new and established faculty members to the necessary — and we hoped temporary — changes. As nurses, we are used to constant change; however, we knew there were going to be unforeseen challenges. My background
allowed me to keep the day-to-day operations running even when we ran into new hurdles.
Our commitment to protecting our students and faculty extended into how we logistically created lab space, managed student scheduling and limited sharing our new location to only student cohorts requiring lab time for their current courses. As excited
as we were to move into our new space, we could not open it up to the public. Instead, we held a
virtual grand opening event on Facebook and YouTube to introduce the new satellite nursing campus to the community.
A cutting-edge simulation lab also allows high-fidelity “patients” to present real-life — even emergency — situations, and simulation debriefing rooms provide space for review of the students’ experience.
Some of the most exciting and innovative parts of our new learning site are the simulation rooms. Our high, medium and low fidelity manikins are now in acute care patient rooms with two-way glass where experienced simulation operators and faculty can
guide the simulation. Now our manikins can go from alert and oriented with a normal heart rhythm to a heart rhythm that is not compatible with life at the click of a button, without the visibility of instructional staff. The flexibility our new simulation
rooms, manikins and software gives our students the most realistic experiences possible in an environment they can learn in, without the fear of harming a patient.
Although they are working in two-person simulations and independently in the lab, our students experience hands-on care with their peers. Our teaching continues in virtual debriefing rooms after each simulation. Students demonstrate skills competency
in the lab in 1:1 check offs after learning the content virtually and practicing in open lab. These experiences allow them to learn, grow and prepare for real-life situations at the bedside. Future patients will benefit from the combination of skills
training and simulation experiences cultivated in our graduates.
During 2020-21, we have welcomed more than 350 nursing students into our range of nursing programs. These students talk about the way this new interactive facility brings what they read in their textbooks and see in course videos to reality when they
can hold the equipment and witness patient reactions to their treatments. They tell us they appreciate the care we have taken to protect them during COVID-19.
I am proud to be a part of the future of nursing as an educator in our new state-of-the-art facility. I cannot wait to see how we continue to grow and change as a program throughout the rest of this pandemic and into the future.
Print Page
Email to a Friend
