No Place Like Home
The School of Nursing’s Clarke Learning Laboratory expanded in 2016 to include a simulation lab that prepares students for the special challenges of providing home health care. The lab is designed as a fully functional apartment with kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom.
Senior Sherin Thomas participates in a simulation exercise with volunteer patient,
Stan Kelton, in the home health lab.
“Health care is migrating to our homes,” said Margaret Hassler, M.S.N., R.N.-BC, C.H.S.E., laboratory coordinator. “Home health care spans the lifetime from prenatal and neonatal home care to elderly homebound and hospice care. In addition, hospitals are discharging patients much quicker and sicker than in years past. Twenty years ago, we couldn’t imagine patients receiving hemodialysis or central line infusions at home but that’s commonplace now. We want to prepare our students to provide care no matter where they are.”
Sometimes providing care presents challenges not found in a clinical setting – newspapers piled on the stove, insects hiding in corners, a space heater plugged in near flammable objects, a bathroom doorway too narrow for a walker or wheelchair. The new lab simulates these challenges during training.
“Treating the patient is only part of home health care,” said Hassler. “Identifying safety hazards and learning how to communicate with patients in a way that maintains respect and provides physical and emotional safety also is part of the simulation experience.”
As with the hospital and maternity simulation labs in the Clarke Learning Laboratory, all simulations in the home health apartment are videotaped and reviewed as part of the learning experience. Students sometimes work with high-fidelity manikins and other times with specially trained standardized patients.
Alumni interested in volunteering as standardized patients or in sharing their clinical stories with student nurses can contact Hassler at margie.hassler@health.slu.edu.
Founded in 1928, Saint Louis University School of Nursing has achieved a national reputation for its innovative and pioneering programs. Offering bachelor's, master's, and doctoral nursing programs, its faculty members are nationally recognized for their teaching, research and clinical expertise.