The Nursing Skills laboratories at Alvernia College provide a supportive and caring environment for students to practice and demonstrate nursing skills. Nursing students learn psychomotor, critical thinking and physical assessment skills necessary for clinical nursing, before moving into a practice setting with patients. The opportunity to become familiar with equipment and techniques in a non-threatening environment that simulates the clinical nursing environment is a critical component of skill acquisition. The main skills laboratory is a simulated 5 bed health care setting with life-sized care manikins, various skill models, bedside computers with Internet access, and state-of-the-art equipment. A recently renovated 2 bed Simulation/Testing Laboratory provides a private setting for full scale simulations and individualized practice and testing of psychomotor skills.

A variety of life-sized computer driven patient simulators are utilized to enhance student learning. These simulated patients are able to respond to student interaction. They talk, breathe, and have audible heart, lung, and bowel sounds, pulses, blood pressure, and cardiac rhythms.

A Nursing computer laboratory with 6 computers is available exclusively to nursing students and is accessed through the main Nursing Skills Laboratory. A variety of computer assisted instruction (CAI) programs are available to help students become proficient at skills they will use in the clinical setting. Word processing, Power Point, spreadsheet, databases, Internet access and email are available in the Nursing Computer laboratory, at the 5 bedside computers, in the Franco Library and in computer labs across campus.

Updated: July 24, 2007

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