The Skills and Simulation Center within the School of Nursing is an important and valuable asset for nursing student development and learning. The Center currently contains three lab rooms and two simulation rooms with attached debriefing space. Students use the center to learn nursing skills for half the semester and to participate in simulation events the other half.
Students use lab rooms to learn physical assessment and other hands-on skills. These rooms are equipped with functioning hospital beds, stretchers, suction capability, simulated oxygen and other equipment that students will see in a hospital setting. Supplies are available for practice so competency can be achieved with every required skill. Intravenous and enteral feeding pumps, training devices for IV insertion and injections plus a variety of manikins maximize the learning experience of our students within the lab setting. Some of these manikins have the ability to generate heart, lung and bowel sounds that are beneficial for head to toe physical assessment skills and scenarios.
The Skills and Simulation Center is also used to enhance the curriculum by integrating the nursing process with simulated patient-care scenarios. Research has shown that using interactive simulation experiences in conjunction with classroom learning develops better prepared practitioners while improving quality health care, education, and patient safety. Simulated experiences in a variety of settings within the lab increases the student’s understanding of a nurse’s role, allows for improvement of communication skills and promotes clinical reasoning.
Vision Statement
The New Mexico State University (NMSU) School of Nursing’s Skills and Simulation Center aspires to become a leader in innovative and immersive skills and simulation-based education modalities in order to transform nursing and other multidisciplinary healthcare education in southern New Mexico.
Mission Statement
The NMSU School of Nursing’s Skills and Simulation Center provides state of the art skills and simulation-based experiences for future healthcare professionals, focusing on hands-on skills practice and interactive multi-modal simulation-based learning, that promotes safe and competent healthcare practices for diverse individuals and border populations.
Core Values
The School of Nursing (SON) operates under the following core values:
Accountable for providing the best skills and simulation experiences to prepare our learners
Genuine commitment to teamwork to ensure the best experience for our learners
Give respect and embrace diverse backgrounds, talents, and perspectives
Innovate to create new approaches to healthcare education and redefine existing ones
Excellence in achieving the highest standards in everything we do
Show integrity by being honest, ethical, and consistent in our actions
Strategic Goals
NMSU has identified four strategic goals (NMSU LEADS 2025) that reflect the university’s mission and vision and are vital to NMSU’s success. These goals include:
- Advancing student success;
- Elevating research and creativity;
- Amplifying extension and outreach; and
- Building a robust NMSU system.
NMSU’s strategic goals are designed to be broad enough for each unit within the university system to find a way to contribute. The SON’s Skills and Simulation Center contributes to LEADS 2025 in the following ways:
Goal 1, Objective 1.2 Increase student learning, retention, and degree attainment
- Cultivates a learning environment that is collegial, individualized, and innovative.
- Provides experiential educational experiences that allow students to learn and practice critical thinking, skill attainment, and communication with patients, families and the healthcare team.
- Increases awareness of patient safety in the healthcare environment.
- Incorporates best practices and standards of simulation across the curriculum.
Goal 4, Objective 4.3 Establish operational excellence through metric-driven, service-oriented approach
- Develop metric-driven decision-making processes that drive operational efficiencies
- Evaluate simulation and educational strategies for effectiveness and student achievement of learning outcomes.
- Create management infrastructures and procedures that effectively coordinate and integrate the Center’s priorities, activities and resources.
Our Campuses
Grants, Alamogordo and the Las Cruces campuses have high-fidelity manikins that provide students with a fully immersive experience in a realistic setting. The Las Cruces campus also has a high fidelity Sim baby and a birth simulator manikin. Realistic patient scenarios using manikins and standardized patients have been created by experienced nursing faculty to maximize learning within a safe and supportive environment. The scenarios are developed so students learn to collaborate with other members of the health care team, assess rapid changes in their patient’s condition and make decisions that affect patient outcomes. As students interpret the bedside monitor, perform a focused assessment and practice inter-disciplinary communication they become better prepared for the clinical setting and develop confidence for interactions with real patients. NMSU’s high fidelity simulation rooms are fully equipped with video and sound systems that allow for effective observational learning and assist in the evaluation of student performance through guided debriefing with faculty.
The NMSU SON is excited to announce the launch of a new initiative for Fall 2021. The Skills and Simulation Center is expanding to include a Simulated Participant program. This new program will enhance the student’s learning experience using trained human role players as scenario participants which most often is a patient, but also can include family members, providers, therapists, and other roles.
These realistic clinical encounters that occur within the safe learning environment of the Sim lab will provide learners with increased opportunities for practicing skills, meeting objectives and receiving feedback. Successful programs show an improvement in interdisciplinary communication skills, confidence, and performance.
We hope to recruit and train persons from the community, non-nursing major students or retirees that have a passion for student success and learning. If you or someone you know may be interested in joining our Simulation Participant Program please click here to find out more about this position.
Please Contact us for Additional Information:
Current students can visit the student support site in the Nursing Skills and Simulation Center course in Canvas for more information and open lab hours.
| NMSU Las Cruces Campus: | Contact: |
| HSS Rm 118 Phone: (575) 646-3699 Fax: (575) 646-2167 nurseskillslab@nmsu.edu |
Penny Jimerson, MBA, RN Manager, Skills & Simulation Center HSS Rm 132E 575-646-2100, or pjimer01@nmsu.edu |
