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By Anne Craig, Communications Officer

Queen’s School of Nursing is organizing a conference in Toronto to showcase the new clinical simulation equipment that 13 Ontario nursing programs have purchased following a $5.8 million investment from the Ontario government’s Productivity and Innovation Fund (PIF).

 “Blue Sky: Innovations in Patient Safety and Teaching and Learning” is running March 24 and 25 and will focus on enhancing registered nurse job readiness and patient safety outcomes thanks to the new funding.

“We want to produce job ready graduates,” says Jennifer Medves, director of Queen’s School of Nursing and Vice-Dean (Faculty of Health Sciences). “We can expose students to many new experiences, get them to critically think and utilize all of their nursing expertise, and to respond to unusual events with this new equipment. The simulation experience is an important part of their education.”

Queen’s School of Nursing faculty developed the clinical simulation education project in partnership with 12 other university schools of nursing, four colleges, and Ontario’s Simulation Network (SIM-one).  Several universities that received PIF funding will showcase their new clinical simulations at the conference. Queen’s participants will demonstrate new equipment designed to instruct students in ventilator support and respiratory distress. The equipment includes life-like mannequins for students to practice various techniques on.

This is the first time all 13 partner universities with four year degree programs are working together to develop unique education modules. These modules will be put into a large repository for use across the province.

For more information about the conference visit the .