Maverick Family Simulation Center in demand
Services ramping up and expanding
Before the pandemic, Kate Glogowski loved her role as the Director of the Center for Communication Sciences & Disorders and Internship Coordinator helping graduate students secure internships in medical facilities.
When COVID arrived, this role changed, and students weren’t allowed in most health care facilities. Meaning, they also weren't getting the in-patient experiences their programs required. With her team in Speech, Hearing, and Rehab Services, Glogowski got to help create and build opportunities for simulated experiences that would allow students to stay on track and get the experiences they were missing.
“They needed the experience, but they weren't going to get it because they couldn't be in the facilities,” Glogowski says. “As a team, we created some recorded standardized patient simulations in the multi-bed skills lab in the Maverick Family Nursing Simulation Center. At that time, only administrators were allowed on campus, so our former Dean, Kris Retherford served as our standardized patient (actor).”
At that time, the simulations in the Simulation Center, were instrumental in helping students learn crucial skills during a time when the pandemic prevented traditional learning modes. Work using actors/ standardized patients in settings that often included equipment that mirrors what they'll use in a clinical setting, allowed students to gain the experience they needed.
It was this experience that prompted her to apply for her new role as the Workforce Simulation Center Coordinator in the Maverick Family Nursing Simulation Center.
“Now more than ever, students are learning by 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 to observe," Glogowski commented.
The Maverick Family Nursing Simulation Center uses a variety of learning modalities including high-fidelity manikins, actors/standardized patients, low-fidelity manikins or task trainers, and wearable devices that incorporate both real actors and wearable devices to simulate disordered lung sounds.
Expanding simulation to future and current nursing and allied health professions
Simulations in the Maverick Family Simulation Center that benefited students during the pandemic, are also now helping both students in academics and other allied health professionals in the workforce by helping them acquire new skills and hone existing ones. In her role as the Workforce Simulation Coordinator, Glogowski is tasked with helping these professionals build training sessions in the center. She says use of the Simulation Center has ramped up due to several grants to support trainings that were put on hold during COVID.
“The past several months have been like a foot on the gas," Glogowski says. "We started reigniting grant funds in the summer of 2022 and since then, we're up to approximately 130 trained employees of the 250 employees to be trained with the grant. Plans are to complete those trainings by January 2023.
When grant work stalled during the pandemic, Glogowski said they asked for an extension so they could reevaluate the training---a necessary pivot in the field that required a nimble approach.
"We went back to our partners and asked what their needs were now" (after the pandemic), Glogowski says. "It turns out their needs had changed after the pandemic, so we modified the training to meet those needs. We want to be as responsive as possible to meet the needs of the community."
Glogowski says the training program for existing nurses is popular, saying she hears current nurses want to continue training to advance their skills. Another demand she is seeing is for simulation training to become available for other allied health professionals.
"We want to continue to be a resource for nurses, but also those in allied health professions such as speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic trainers, EMTs — really anyone who wants to practice procedural-based skills with a standardized patient or a high-fidelity manikin.”
More about the Simulation Center
