High-tech Healthcare

Technology is revolutionizing classrooms — sometimes in unexpected disciplines. At Riverland Community College, a simulated “patient” allows healthcare students to treat conditions they might not see in a small-town hospital. It also allows students to follow a patient through a course of care that is timed to coincide with their class sessions.

By Laura French, Star Tribune Sales and Marketing

Last update: December 1, 2008 - 2:34 PM

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McKinley says simulations are gaining ground, although Riverland is "pretty far down the path" compared to many institutions. At a conference last year, they were the only community college with attendees from Harvard, UCLA and Stanford medical schools. For more information on the SimMan equipment used at Riverland, visit www.laerdal.com. For more on the Riverland healthcare programs, visit www.riverland.edu.

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A patient is admitted to the hospital with flu-like symptoms. Because he is dehydrated, the initial treatment includes intravenous fluids. The IV is run too fast, and the patient goes into congestive heart failure. The nurses tending the patient should pick up the signs during their assessment. If they respond correctly, the patient will get better. If not, the patient may go into cardiac arrest.

In most clinics, student nurses would become mere observers in a challenging situation like this one. At Riverland Community College, the students remain the first line of patient care. That's because the "patient" is SimMan, an advanced patient simulator. His case study has been programmed into the controls by Jane McKinley, college lab specialist. McKinley operates the simulation from behind a wall in the eight-bed Riverland healthcare unit and can override the pre-programmed response to react on the fly to the students' treatment.

Riverland has been using patient simulations since 2003. The new, state-of-the-art unit, complete with beds, monitors and other equipment, opened in January 2007. In addition to emergency simulations, nursing students follow "patients" through an entire course of care. McKinley uses makeup, wigs and costumes to turn the mannequins into realistic characters. Students also use the simulators to identify different heart, lung and bowel sounds.

"When we complete a simulation, we go into a debriefing room," says Riverland nursing student Rebecca Russell, who completed her Licensed Practical Nurse training last year and is now in the Registered Nurse program at Riverland. "The instructors tell us, `You did this wrong, you did this right.' Sometimes it's videotaped. There can be high anxiety attached to the debriefing - we walk in saying, `I forgot to do this or that.' We always have a chance to do it again with added information."

McKinley says the simulation lab is a major recruiting tool for Riverland's nursing and radiology programs. Russell agrees. "I couldn't imagine doing it any other way. It's one of the reasons I chose this school. It's definitely made me a better nurse."

Laura French is principal of Words Into Action, Inc., and is a freelance writer from Roseville.

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