A shortage of nurses and other health care workers was already plaguing Tennessee before the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic began in 2020. The shortage worsened as the population grew and more people reached retirement age and needed more care.
During and after the pandemic, there was a mass exodus of healthcare workers, with one in four healthcare workers leaving their jobs. Too many demanding patients and harassment incidents left many overwhelmed.
Some left the state to become travel nurses and seek higher-paying jobs. Other health care workers have learned that they can earn higher salaries at certain fast food restaurants.
Roane State Community College has main campuses and branch campuses in 10 East Tennessee counties and is a health center that trains registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapy assistants, paramedics, and other emergency medical service workers. It is known throughout the state for its science programs.
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RSCC President Chris Whaley said in a recent meeting with the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge that one of the region's first responders and other health care workers has received RSCC training. “When Covenant Health, the University of Tennessee Medical Center, and Tennova asked us to hire more locally trained nurses for their hospitals, we were physically unable to hire more students. I said we don't have a place to accommodate them right now.”
“Our medical partners have asked for new programs, such as sterile processing, and we told them we don't have the physical space for such new programs, but things are changing. there is.”
As RSCC and other nursing schools continue to turn away potential nursing students, citing faculty shortages and access to modern clinical training opportunities and space, Tennessee's education, government and business leaders are Agreed on the solution. The solution is to raise $75 million to build a spacious Knox Regional Health Sciences Education and Simulation Center.
The goal of the new center is to “expand student access to health science education,” according to a brochure distributed to attendees at the league's luncheon. Meeting critical workforce needs in East Tennessee communities, including rural counties. Improving the quality of patient care throughout East Tennessee. ”
Whaley said Roane State graduates about 350 health science students each year from credit programs and awards certificates to 5,000 health care professionals through continuing education programs. But after the new three-story, 130,000-square-foot center was built on Sherrill Boulevard, adjacent to Park West Medical Center and in front of Dead Horse Lake Golf Course, it will have 700 nurses and staff. Other healthcare workers will be trained annually to meet the standards. Increasing local medical needs.
“The current Health Sciences Campus building in Knox County is called the Knox County Health Sciences Center and is approximately 16,000 square feet,” Whaley said. This is one-eighth the space of the planned facility.
“It's near the big campus of Jewelry TV. We're completely packed,” he said.
Whaley said the larger facility will allow RSCC to add to its 20 health science programs that offer college credit, the latest of which is in diagnostic sonography “or what I call the ultrasound program.” He said there is. He explained that the state tasked Roane State with teaching health sciences at RSCC campuses in eight counties, as well as in Blount and Knox counties. RSCC operates the Knox County Health Sciences Center for community college students interested in careers in health care, while Pellissippi State Community College offers courses in all other fields to students in Knox and Blount counties. We offer
The State of Tennessee allocated $67.5 million and Covenant Health donated 10 acres of land for the development of the Knox Regional Health Sciences Education and Simulation Center. Covenant Health manages many community health facilities, including Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center in Knoxville and Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge.
To complete financing for the $75 million project, the Roane Foundation launched a “Prosperity Campaign” to raise $7.5 million from private donors. The goal is to raise $5 million for facility construction, equipment and equipment, and $2.5 million to provide scholarship support and assistance to health science students. Scott Nierman, executive director of the Roane State Foundation, said many students will receive tuition assistance from the Tennessee Promise Scholarship, but each student will need $1,500 to cover the cost of necessary supplies. It is said to become.
Construction and management of the new center, which enrolls students from Knox and surrounding counties, will be led by RSCC in collaboration with Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) in Knoxville. TCAT Health Sciences programs at 24 campuses train future practical nurses, nursing assistants, operating room technicians (surgical technologists), medical assistants, dental assistants, and medical office information technology workers.
Students use computerized mannequins
The center will integrate classroom learning experiences, laboratories equipped with the latest technology, and hospital-like rooms with simulations using mannequins to provide students with more hands-on patient care experience later in life. , the first center of its kind in Tennessee. Get clinical training with human patients.
Victoria Buttershell, director of the Knox Regional Health Sciences Education and Simulation Center, said the center will be equipped with computerized mannequins (worth about $160,000 each) to simulate medical scenarios. Ta. Manufactured by Norway-based Laerdal Medical, the manikin is a full-body patient simulator that mimics human anatomy and physiology and safely enables the teaching of clinical skills in professional medical settings.
“The mannequin-based simulations at this center will never be a complete replacement for students getting real-life experience with patients in the clinic,” she said. But because clinical space is at a premium, students may learn in a simulated environment how to deal with health issues they may never encounter in clinical training, she added.
“We will be able to simulate a heart attack or even the birth of a mannequin baby by a mannequin mother in a way that is absolutely amazing,” Batterschel said. “Our mannequins can hear the blinking of their eyes, breathing sounds, heart sounds, and defecation sounds. They respond verbally as we program them.”
Students can practice measuring a mannequin's temperature and blood pressure using a mock device that displays numbers. They learn how to use medical equipment in a mock hospital with mannequins in an ICU room, two admission rooms and a three-bed emergency room that can be turned into an operating room. She said a mock patient bathroom will be installed to provide students with training in safely transferring mannequin patients from their beds to shower stalls and back again.
Using mannequins, Buttershell said the 11,000-square-foot sim center (as she calls it) will teach students how to safely transfer people injured in car accidents to real ambulances, and how to safely remove patients from ambulances. He said he would train future emergency medical technicians how to lower it. Move from the second floor of the house to the ambulance using a stretcher and chair.
“We will teach paramedics how to deliver a simulated baby in the back of an ambulance,” she added.
Buttershell said artificial intelligence will be used to simulate realistic scenes through videos created from 360-degree scans of various medical environments.
“When conducting emergency medical air transport training, we want the room to look like the back of a C-17 aircraft while EMT (emergency medical technician) students treat simulated patients.” she said.
Whaley was described as a leader who “understands that Roane State is a place that works closely with employers to drive economic development by providing relevant programs that meet their workforce needs.” It was done. He noted that because of the industry in Clinton, RSCC is focusing on mechatronics and advanced manufacturing courses on its campus there. Some courses at the Oak Ridge campus center around “What Oak Ridge is and what Oak Ridge does. We offer chemical technology and mechatronics, and we have a new program in nuclear technology.'' We are planning to launch.”
