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Waveny Partners With Norwalk Community College To Improve Nursing Training

NORWALK, Conn. -- Waveny Care Center – Waveny LifeCare Network’s nursing and short-term rehab facility – has partnered with the Simulation Center of the Norwalk Community College Division of Nursing and Allied Health, to provide hands-on simulation training for Waveny’s nurses, specifically for those who care for the Center’s short-term rehab patients. 

Norwalk Community College and Waveny Care Center partner to meet the needs of an increasingly acute patient population and reduce hospital readmissions.

Norwalk Community College and Waveny Care Center partner to meet the needs of an increasingly acute patient population and reduce hospital readmissions.

Photo Credit: Contributed

Called “WATCH,” an acronym for Waveny Care Center’s Assessment Training Collaboration for Healthcare Serving the Community, this training program was developed by Mary Di Paola, RN, Waveny’s Director of Nursing and Cathleen Caulfield, RN, MSN, MS, CHSE, NCC’s Simulation Center Coordinator, to enhance Waveny’s clinical team’s ability to proactively recognize, assess and respond to challenges posed by diagnoses like CHF, COPD, Pneumonia, Post Myocardial Infarction and Urinary Tract Infection. 

“Today, the medical care needs of patients discharged from local hospitals to Waveny Care Center for inpatient care are vastly more acute than they were just a few years ago,” said Di Paola. “Many of the joint replacement cases who in years past would have come to the Care Center as short-term rehab patients are now going directly home with homecare services. 

"It’s those patients who require greater care due to their complex co-morbidities who we now see in inpatient rehabilitation, using our interdisciplinary team to manage their recovery. That’s why it’s vitally important for our nursing team to be prepared to care for these patients with the highest quality of nursing, early identification, communication and interventions to reduce complications and the need for hospital readmission," Di Paola said.

The NCC Simulation Center, which launched in 2011, allows healthcare students and community professionals across disciplines to practice skills in medical procedures, using computerized SimMan and Noelle patient mannequins to portray patient situations. 

Simulation educators guide students through scenarios that replicate real-life situations that they would encounter as healthcare clinicians. 

NCC has ten full-body simulation mannequins that mimic many human functions, including breathing, talking and coughing. The students diagnose health issues and perform therapies such as intravenous therapy and injections. 

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