Reid State uses new technology to teach neonatal nursing care
EVERGREEN, Ala. (WAKA Action 8) –Â A major upgrade is in store for future nurses at Reid State Technical College in Evergreen.
The school is using new neonatal technology to change the way students learn to care for newborns.
The technology includes neonatal simulation technology, including a “baby” known as Luna. It’s all made possible thanks to a $60,000 grant from the Alabama Community College System (ACCS), which helps Launch the project addressing rural healthcare disparities and nursing shortages in Conecuh, Butler Monroe, Escambia and Wilcox counties.
“We were able to apply for a grant with Perkins funding with the Alabama college system and it’s competitive,” says Ginger Glass, the Dean of Instruction at Reid State. “We wrote a grant requesting that we be able to purchase our Luna our new baby in the nursery here.”
The interactive equipment is designed to help produce more qualified nurses that are prepared for newborn care.
“We do not have a lot of hospitals that still offers OBGYN services and so our nurses, when they go out for clinical, don’t get the type of practice that we would like for them to have. They get practice but not the repetition,” says Karen Barnes, the Director of Nursing at Reid State. “Therefore, it takes training with specialized equipment like Luna to know and recognize and the signs that indicate pain and sicknesses.”
Before the technology, the nursing students has very limited access to tools that could help in real-life delivery environments. But thanks to the grant, and Baby Luna, that is going to change.
“Our simulators give our students a safe place to make mistakes learn from those mistakes then improve critical judgement learn from that critical thinking g then be better prepared out in the real world to better know what to do in those situations,” says Barnes.
