WATERVILLE — A new simulation center for teaching nursing and other health care skills is planned to be built next to Northern Light Inland Hospital and open in early spring, hospital officials announced Tuesday.

Purdue Global School of Nursing is partnering with Inland Hospital on the center, which officials said is designed to create a more efficient and innovative learning model that meets the needs of Purdue students, Inland staff and the community, according to a news release.

Inland President Tricia Costigan Photo courtesy of Inland Hospital

The simulation center will use a family of high-fidelity, Gaumard-brand manikins, including an infant, child, birthing mother and adult, according to officials. The space itself will have will feature large simulation suites staged to mock hospital rooms, with audio and video capabilities. It will include a master control room, several conference rooms to hold debriefings, a dedicated skills lab, break area, nurses’ station, central supply area, medication preparation space, offices and storage space.

“We are excited to partner with Inland Hospital,” said Melissa Burdi, Purdue Global’s vice president and dean of the School of Nursing, “creating a state-of-the-art simulation facility that enables our nursing students and health care colleagues to engage in immersive learning with a keen training focus on patient safety, high reliability and quality of care, all while fostering inter-professional collaboration serving the rural community.”

Purdue and Inland also are working together to create mutually beneficial inter-professional simulation experiences in which multiple health care professionals can practice patient and family care together, according to the release.

Inland Hospital President Tricia Costigan said the medical simulation lab partnership gives the hospital’s health care staff another important way to continue to hone and grow their clinical skills.

“State-of-the-art, hands-on training, with easy access right on our hospital campus, is invaluable,” Costigan said. “We are grateful for Purdue’s collaboration to help us deliver the best care possible to our community.”

Officials said the arrangement builds on an existing partnership between Purdue and Inland in which Purdue students have completed their clinical rotations at the hospital.

Inland is located at 200 Kennedy Memorial Drive in Waterville. The new lab will go in an existing building at 222 Kennedy Memorial Drive. The 48-bed hospital has 429 employees, which does not include another 129 employees at the nearby Northern Light Continuing Care Lakewood.

The hospital had nearly 215,000 outpatient visits in 2021 and 956 inpatient admissions that year, according to Inland officials.