SIERRA VISTA — A generous donation made by two local hospitals will allow Cochise College to purchase a piece of technology that will allow the college to increase the number of students admitted into its nursing program.

Sierra Vista Regional Health Center and Copper Queen Community Hospital each donated $25,000 to the college, money that will be used toward the purchase of a SimMan, a highly technical patient simulator.

SimMan’s realistic anatomical and clinical functions are designed to test students’ decision-making skills. The interactive mannequin will enable nursing students to practice patient care, simulating many of the hands-on experiences they receive in actual clinical training.

“We have completely saturated all of the clinical sites for nurse training, which limits how many nursing students we can accept each year,” said Jennifer Lakosil, the director of nursing and allied health for Cochise College. “The use of a patient simulator will serve as an adjunct to the student’s clinical experience, and will allow the college to increase the number of students we’re able to admit into our program.”

Currently, the college admits 75 new nursing students every year. The SimMan will raise that to 100.

On Monday, representatives of Cochise College attended a brief ceremony where hospital Chief Executive Officers Jim Dickson of CQCH and Margaret Hepburn of SVRHC presented the donations.

“With the current state budget cuts and their impact on health care, we see this as a positive step in helping to alleviate the nursing shortage,” Dickson said. “During this period of budget cutbacks, this is one way we can all work together to support each other.”

The SimMan mannequin will be used in a new simulation lab Cochise College will be opening in January, 2010. The $85,500 SimMan will be joining the college’s SimBaby, already being used by nursing students.

On behalf of SVRHC, Hepburn said, “It’s our pleasure to partner with Cochise College in this simulation lab. SVRHC has a wonderful partnership with Cochise College’s nursing program, both in training the students and in placement of the new nurses.”

Lakosil said the college plans to “give back to the community” by allowing nurses to use the patient simulator for continuing education training.

Joanna Michelich, Cochise College executive vice president, also had words of praise for the hospitals and their support of the simulation lab. “We greatly support the generosity of the two hospitals. This is a program that is really important for the college. It allows us to provide our students with technology that raises the quality of clinical training.”