AN ALLIED EFFORT
OSU-OKC BUILDING FEATURES HIGH-TECH TRAINING, HEALTH CLINIC
Health care professionals of tomorrow and today are engaged in training and patient care under one roof on the campus of Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City.
A new Allied Health Building at 440 N Portland Ave. features hightech labs for students and a working community health clinic for the public.
Construction of the 45,000-square-foot building began in May 2015 and was completed in time for classes to begin this week. The Variety Care clinic opened one week earlier.
Officials came together Friday to dedicate the $13 million building.
OSU-OKC President Natalie Shirley said nursing students and faculty began talking to her about the need for a new building from her first day on the job five years ago.
“Because of the reputation of our health sciences programs, we have seen an increase in demand that we couldn’t meet. Now we have greater capacity to give our allied health students the foundation to be the very best in their chosen field,” Shirley said.
The health sciences division comprises nursing, diagnostic sonography, nutritional sciences,
radiological technology and health care administration.
Hands-on learning labs
The simulation center is the heart of the building, with lifelike manikins that allow students to train for real-life situations they will encounter in their future work, Shirley said.
The manikins are in a 10-bed lab and individual rooms where students practice care in situations like surgery, emergency care, intensive care and labor and delivery. The wireless manikins are controlled by instructors outside the room to simulate a real environment. They can do all the things real patients do, including blink, cry, moan, breathe, lose blood pressure, vomit and die.
The simulation center also will provide training and continuing education classes for health care workers employed at area hospitals.
Room for more nurses
Shirley said the new facility means OSU-OKC can enroll about 100 more nursing students each year. The program accepts about 200 annually, but with 1,400 students in prenursing many applicants are turned away, she said.
The successful program gradates about 300 nurses annually with a pass rate on the national certification exam 10 percent higher than the national average, she said.
Anna Nguyen, head of the nursing department, said the new facility is “adaptable, flexible and multidimensional so we can meet today’s health care needs.”
The simulation labs, state-of-the-art technology and partnerships with other health care agencies provide great educational opportunities, Nguyen said.
The nursing students do clinical rotations to learn how to take care of patients in clinics, hospitals and in their homes.
“Having the clinic right under our roof is a great benefit,” she said.
Benefits for all
The Variety Care clinic provides OSU-OKC students more than the chance to interact with physicians and patients and to work as part of a health care team.
Students and their families are among those who can use the clinic.
Many OSU-OKC students and nearby residents lack access to quality health services, Variety Care CEO Lou Carmichael said. Variety Care serves patients with limited or no insurance.
Services offered at the clinic include family and pediatric medicine and dentistry, obstetrics, family planning, behavioral health and optometry.
Classroom and training equipment was made possible through grants and donations from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration, The Hearst Foundations, Integris, Sarkeys Foundation, Cox, Presbyterian Health Foundation and Pedigo Products. Delta Dental provided funding for the equipment in the Variety Care dental suite.