High Tech Nursing Lab Opens
Nursing Lab Provides True-to-Life Patient Simulations to Enhance Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes of Future Health Care Providers
Keene State College now offers a new nursing lab that provides a realistic hospital and clinic setting, and incorporates cutting edge medical technology to prepare tomorrow’s nurses. The lab has the potential to help educate students in other Keene State health professional academic programs and practicing professionals in the community. The nursing lab features intensive care rooms, medical-surgical areas, an exam area, nurses station, and life-like, high-fidelity mannequins. The nursing lab provides the opportunity to record the practice of techniques on video and follow up with individualized faculty to student review and evaluation. Clinical simulations employ new technologies to make it easier for students to experience staged patient-provider situations, allowing students to be fully engaged in providing care.
“I am thrilled that this lab is now in use. There is enormous career opportunity for well-trained nurses in our state and throughout New England. Through this lab, Keene State nursing students have access to the latest clinical technology that will help prepare them for the world of nursing after graduation. The benefits from this lab even reach beyond the field of nursing,” said Dr. Mary Ellen Fleeger, Director of Nursing at Keene State College. “Today, health care delivery is a team effort – for this reason, this lab has potential for interdisciplinary education. As an interdisciplinary facility, the lab would also provide an enhanced learning environment for other Keene State programs such as exercise physiology, dietetics, and any health science profession needing the latest physical assessment equipment. In addition, we expect the lab will become available to our community to help augment the knowledge and skills of providers, such as first responders to medical emergencies. The potential also exists for continuing education opportunities for other licensed health care practitioners, creating learner-centered educational activities.”
Keene State College offers a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing and is accredited by the Collegiate Commission of Nursing Education. Students in this program earn their bachelor’s degree and are eligible to take their RN exam. The first class of students to earn the Bachelors of Science degree from Keene State in Nursing graduated in 2013.
“I am really excited to work in the new lab, because it provides me and other the nursing students with our own dedicated space containing the latest technologies. This will give all of us an edge as we continue with our nursing educations and then go out in the real world to apply all we’ve learned in this new environment,” said Jessica Morissette, Keene State College Nursing Student and junior, set to graduate in 2015.
Photos of the lab are available upon request. Interviews with Dr. Fleeger and Jessica Morissette are available by contacting Kelly Ricaurte at 603-358-2119.
