SIERRA VISTA — The Cochise College Nursing and Allied Health Department recently received a grant to purchase a new addition to its simulation lab on the Sierra Vista Campus.
With funding from the Arizona Health Facilities Authority and the Cochise College Foundation, the nursing department will acquire a new birthing and maternal simulator, allowing students to participate in simulated labor and delivery scenarios.
Nursing students work in the simulation lab at Cochise College. (File photo)
“Our simulators assist with high-risk, low-frequency scenarios, which means we’re replicating patients they won’t often see in a rural area,” said Jennifer Lakosil, Cochise College Health Sciences Director. “We’re kind of replicating an ICU, with people in critical conditions.”
With the addition of the NOELLE S575 simulator, the college’s nursing program now has four state-of-the-art mannequin-based simulators — along with man, infant and junior — to train students in nursing, paramedicine and respiratory therapy programs. Lakosil said the equipment is often shared with local hospitals for employees to test in skills competency.
“The Arizona Health Facilities Authority has been very supportive of our program,” Lakosil said. “This is the third award we’ve received from them.”
According to its website, the Authority was established in 1977 by the state legislature to issue funds to health care facilities and help improve health care for Arizona residents. In the 1990s, it broadened its mission in an effort to aid health care facilities in rural and underserved areas.
The first two awards the college received from the Arizona Health Facilities Authority were in the amount of about $20,000 each to fund nursing labs at the Nogales/Santa Cruz Center and Willcox Center. The grant for the simulation lab addition covered $25,000 of the $48,000 needed to purchase NOELLE, with the other half funded by the Cochise College Foundation.