HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONS:
P
erhaps at no time in recent history has the need for qualified healthcare workers been more starkly apparent than during the COVID-19 crisis of 2020. The health safety crisis dominated headlines and shone a spotlight on the critical and growing need for health care professionals in a variety of fields. Across Albany and Southwest Georgia, practitioners and educators are making the investment to grow and strengthen the health worker pipeline with state-of-the-art education and training to ensure that southwest Georgia’s medical care options are among the best in the region.
Planning and construction of the new Phoebe Simulation and Innovation Center, designed to be a hub for a one-ofa-kind Nursing Simulation and Training Education Program (NSTEP) Phoebe developed to support new graduate nurses, welcomed its first group of nurses for training in June. The $5.3 million, 22,000-square-foot center employs the latest technology in high-fidelity medical mannequins. It contains multiple training rooms – including an operating/trauma room, a traditional hospital room, an intensive care unit room, and a labor and delivery suite which contains a neonatal intensive care unit – all set up to emulate the actual facilities in which Phoebe staff work.
18 NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2020
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We are able to do everything from allowing a novice nurse to practice inserting a peripheral intravenous line to simulating a difficult premature birth for an entire labor and delivery and NICU team,” said the center’s manager, Larecia Gill, PHD, RN.
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PHOEBE PUTNEY HEALTH SYSTEM
LOCAL STRIDES TO BUILD WORKFORCE
“By allowing our staff to train using simulation, they are in a ‘safe’ environment that will help improve their clinical competency and confidence in delivering safe, quality healthcare which will improve patient safety and reduce healthcare costs.”
