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LEWISTOWN - Health care professionals and other area residents joined in celebration Monday for the open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new Multidisciplinary Science and Health Laboratory, located at the Penn State Learning Center in Lewistown.

According to a press release by Penn State University, the lab was developed through a partnership by Penn State, Lewistown Hospital and the Mifflin-Juniata Career and Technology Center to create a training place for health care professionals.

The lab features the latest in high technology human patient simulators and other equipment to enhance learning for student nurses and other health care professionals in rural Mifflin and Juniata counties, the release states.

"One room features life-like adult and child mannequins that are programmable and can display a wide range of medical symptoms and conditions for teaching purposes. A video camera will record training sessions," the release states. "A second room is equipped for teaching basic science courses and for conducting scientific experiments."

The lab is supported by a $196,000 equipment grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, as well as funding from the partners, according to the release.

Teaching tools

Alicia B. Lentz, coordinator of the Practical Nursing Program at the Mifflin-Juniata Career and Technology Center, said the lab's mannequins can make different sounds such as normal breathing, being short of breath and coughing. All of the sounds are programmed by a remote.

There also are a variety of real-life wounds students can treat on the mannequins, such as an open abdominal wound and an abdominal wound with an incision. The lab also contains a gangrene foot and other medical injuries and complications.

Nurses assess the mannequins and find the problems, Lentz said.

The lab also contains a high fidelity simulator mannequin called a Sim Man. The mannequin is hooked up to a computer that monitors its vital signs. Students can hear the mannequin's lungs by using a stethoscope, Lentz said.

"It could be pneumonia or it could be perfectly fine," she said about the mannequin's breathing.

Students also can hear the mannequin's abdominal sounds, which can be programmed to be normal or abnormal, Lentz said.

In addition, Sim Man's feet and legs also move, she said.

"A student could position this patient in the way they would have to," she said.

Essentially, students can practice responding to different scenarios, Lentz said, such as if the mannequin's oxygen rate were to change.

Students also can give medication to the Sim Man. If the wrong dosage is given, the mannequin can be programmed to have its breathing rate changed, Lentz explained. As a result, the student would have to treat that, she said.

After the simulations, students can discuss what went right and what went wrong, Lentz said.

"It's a way to learn by making mistakes you would never want to make with a real person," she said.

Lentz added that students could "carry out the whole scene and nobody gets hurt."

The lab also has a control room in which the instructor can observe the students interacting with the mannequins. Instructors can use pre-programmed scenarios, such as common medical conditions, for the mannequins, or write their own, Lentz said.

Every time the student touches the mannequin it is recorded, she said. The recording can be played later in the classroom.

"We could use the whole situation just as a teaching tool within itself," she said.

Lentz said Lewistown Hospital donated a lot of the equipment in the lab, such as an Electrocardiogram machine.

She said the lab can be used to train nursing students, emergency medical technicians, those that work in nursing homes and other such professionals.

"This is really the up-and-coming thing in clinical education," she said.

The lab contains two child mannequins, one Sim Man, one NewB, which is a newborn baby mannequin, one ALS mannequin, or one used for advanced life saving, a birthing module, and several task trainers that are used only for certain types of medical tasks, Lentz said.

Kirk Gilbert, science coordinator and rural health educator at the Penn State Learning Center, said the lab has a virtual IV program, in which students can practice IV and phlebotomy techniques.

A haptic device gives the real feel of placing an IV in a patient, Gilbert said.

"You get the skin resistance, you get the vein popping," he said.

Before inserting a virtual IV, students can pick a clinical case, the patient's history and a site to place the IV, Gilbert said. They also are able to choose the equipment to use.

"It runs you through the whole procedure," he said.

The program scores the patient on their performance and shows critical errors, Gilbert said.

"It gives students a good feel," he said.

Response from the community

Lentz said it is exciting to be able to give students in Lewistown the opportunity to use the lab.

Students will get to gain experience in pediatrics and obstetrics - an area they might not otherwise be able to gain experience in.

"It's a way to keep people's options open," she said.

The lab helps expose students to the future of nursing, she said.

"We really are looking forward to working together and making this to be a longtime partnership," she said.

Mary Alyce Nelson, director at Lewistown Hospital's School of Nursing, said the lab is a huge asset to the school of nursing program and to the whole community.

"It's difficult to find clinical space," she said.

Nelson said the lab allows students to plan emergency situations.

"Students can experience that in a controlled setting," she said.

Kim Stuck, a Lewistown Hospital School of Nursing faculty member, said the lab allows "lots of real-life experience in a safe setting."

The lab offers diversity, she said, because it contains mannequins from ages infant to geriatric, and it helps students learn a wide range of skills, from simple to complex scenarios.

"It's really amazing," she said.

Stuck said the lab is getting a lot of response from students, emergency medical technicians and the community.

"It should help with lots of different continuing education," she said.

Kay Hamilton, president and CEO at Lewistown Hospital, said the lab benefits anyone in the health care industry that practices hands-on with patients.

Anyone, even those that have been in the health care business for a long time, can use the lab to brush up on their skills, she said.

Additionally, the lab is advantageous to high school students. They can use the lab to see if the health care industry is something that interests them and if it's a career they want to pursue.

"There are a multitude of people that can come here and take refresher courses," she added.

She said it is "touching and humbling, the culmination of a lot of dreams and a lot of work."

"This is something that will benefit the community for many years in the future," she continued.

Hamilton said the mannequins are a great learning tool, and the lab will train health care professionals for the future and will benefit the lab's partners and both Mifflin and Juniata counties.

"I can't wait to see the first tests results on these mannequins," she said.

Tom Walker, director at the Penn State Learning Center, said the facility came together through a "tremendous amount of community collaboration."

He said the partnership with Penn State, Lewistown Hospital and the Mifflin-Juniata Career and Technology Center, as well as the grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, brought the lab into the community.

This area is in need of trained professionals, he said, and the lab helps educate those with health care careers, as well as local people, Walker said.

"This lab is for the community ... so we can help educate our residents," he said.