Grant from Roy & Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust to Benefit Center for Simulation Innovation

Nursing students at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock will receive a more realistic nursing education in the Center for Simulation Innovation thanks to a grant from the Roy & Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust.

The Roy & Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust has awarded a grant of $25,000 to the University of Arkansas Foundation for the Center for Simulation Innovation in the UA Little Rock School of Nursing. The grant will provide funding for the Center for Simulation Innovation to purchase EchoMasks to diversify the educational experience for nursing students.

"We are very excited to get this grant to add more reality to our Center for Simulation Innovation student-learning experiences," said Dr. Sloan Davidson, director of the School of Nursing. "We are grateful to the Roy & Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust for supporting the education of our nursing students. Joanna Hall wrote this grant with the help of training through Hanover, and we are thankful for the opportunity she had to learn through Hanover."

The Center for Simulation Innovation uses several manikins to simulate patients in learning scenarios. These manikins normally resemble a white, middle-aged adult male and are not fully representative of the ages, genders, races, and ethnicities of the patient population in Arkansas.

EchoMasks are designed to enhance the fidelity of simulators by increasing the level of realism learners experience. EchoMasks can transform a manikin to look like patients in a wide range of ages, genders, and skin tones without compromising the functionality of the manikin.

"The grant will help us make our manikin population more reflective of the patient populations our students will be caring for," said Joanna Hall, director of simulation. "It's difficult for students to fully engage in a simulation when the manikin doesn't resemble the patient described in the report. The EchoMasks will make the simulation experience far more realistic for our students. This is a prime example of how we can make healthcare more equitable in Arkansas."

The Center for Simulation Innovation serves approximately 500 undergraduate nursing students per year and received international recognition for excellence in simulation education this year. The center received the 2023 Frontline Simulation Champion Excellence Award from the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL), an association dedicated to advancing the science of healthcare simulation.