SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Southeast Technical College held a dedication ceremony this week for a medical simulation building that’s been four years in the making, and the entire community came together to build the facility that will help improve healthcare throughout the region.
“It mimics a real hospital so students can experience what it’s like to work in this environment,” said Benjamin Valdez, vice president for academic affairs at Southeast Technical College.
The new simulation center is highly realistic and looks and functions much like a hospital.
“This facility will allow us to train students from different disciplines to work together in the same space. They’ll be able to work in the operating room, the intensive care unit and the emergency department. They’ll all learn how to collaborate between professions, which is a key part of health care,” said Christine Possel, dean of curriculum and instruction for health programs.
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Real-world experience to help more nursing students be better prepared for the workforce.
“There’s a high demand for nurses in the region and we don’t see that changing anytime soon, so we know we need to continue adding nurses to the workforce,” Possel said.
“We want to meet the needs of not just Sioux Falls, but the entire state of South Dakota,” Valdes said.
This is a need that affects everyone in the community and is why so many different community and health care leaders came together to make this facility a reality.
“When we were originally discussing this idea, we had 70 people on the roster, but we had over 400 applicants, so we had a real challenge: how do we double that roster to ensure we have nurses in our community,” said David Friczek, chief operating officer for Avera Health.
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Avera, Sanford, the city of Sioux Falls and the state of South Dakota helped fund the new simulation center with the goal of improving the recruitment and training of the next generation of healthcare workers.
“This has really been a great project, with the whole community coming together for the community, because at the end of the day, to say thank you to nurses, you have to look up to them. I think it’s really important that we have so many nurses, lab technicians, surgical technicians who are helping take care of their friends and neighbors,” Friczek said.
Southeast Tech educators worked with experts from Avera and Sanford to help design the new facility.
