UNI unveils completed nursing facility with simulation technology

Source Domain: www.kcrg.com

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (KCRG) – The University of Northern Iowa has completed its nursing facility, giving students in the school’s first nursing program access to simulation technology that mimics real hospital settings.

The facility features patient simulators, including maternal and pediatric models, along with a nurses’ station where students practice coordinating care. Professors control the simulators from a separate room, changing patient statistics while students work to correct them.

Emily Frey, a UNI nursing student who transferred to the university in 2023, is part of the first group training in the program. Phase one of the facility opened during her first year. Phase three is now complete, bringing the project to a close.

“We have a maternal simulator. We have peds, out here we have a nurses’ station. This phase allows us to do more than one patient simulation,” Frey said.

Students staff the nurses’ station while others care for patients in their rooms. Faculty have emphasized treating the simulators as real patients.

“They’ve really enforced treating them like real people. Our mannequins are not mannequins in simulation; they are real people. So we’re interacting with them just right, they’re responding to questions we have,” Frey said.

Nancy Kertz, head of the nursing department, said the program aims to create safe, confident nurses who can transition quickly into their first jobs.

“We’re hoping that we can shorten up the orientation and onboarding that our students will need to participate in in the health care settings,” Kertz said.

Frey said the hands-on experiences have helped her in clinical settings.

“It’s really helped us prepare overall. We don’t go in as nervous as, say, another nursing student that doesn’t have quite the facility,” Frey said.

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