Keeping it real

Minnesota State Mankato’s simulation center’s nimble approach to training is helping transform healthcare on campus and in the community.

The Maverick Family Nursing Simulation Center is an exemplar of Minnesota State Mankato’s commitment to expand programming to meet both academic and workforce training needs of the region,” said Patricia Marincic Dean of the College of Allied Health and Nursing.

Workforce Simulation Director Kate Glogowski knew there was a rise in requests for use of the Center to provide training to current health professionals. In fact, the Center has experienced a 150 percent increase in use since the pandemic.

In the past, Glogowski said nurse education often occurred through on-the-job-training but opportunities for face-to-face learning were significantly decreased during the pandemic. Healthcare professionals simply didn’t have the time to enhance or learn new skills due to the high volume of patients and care needs.

“The University and the Center felt an overwhelming responsibility to help by taking the stress of training off healthcare professionals so they could focus on providing patient care,” Glogowski said.

To help meet workforce training needs, new customized training programs have been designed in the Center to enable providers to develop more complex skills.

Glogowski said simulation also provides the opportunity for healthcare professionals to practice team communication and timing to ensure that procedures are not only performed accurately, but efficiently, and that all members of the team are on the same page (see examples, opposite page).

On the academic side of the Center, Director Megan Dohm has also upped her game in both skills and simulation training to a growing number of prelicensure students.

Minnesota State Mankato is committed to increasing our prelicensure cohorts to 80 students to help meet the critical need for new nurses, Dean Marincic said. “Increasing training through high-impact simulation allows us to send a better prepared student to our clinical training sites and enhances the student learning experience.”

“Now more than ever, people are learning by doing” Glogowski said. “Simulation helps to move learning a skill or practice into doing. To be able to practice a skill over and over again helps the learner feel comfortable and builds confidence in their skills. It’s a really amazing process.”

The Maverick Family Nursing Simulation Center is a dedicated area in the University’s state-of-the-art Clinical Sciences Building that gives students and healthcare professionals the opportunity to learn innovative best practices and the latest techniques related to patient care in a realistic environment.