New WGU Nursing Simulation Lab in Kansas City
Reviewed by Keith L. Smith, PhD, MA, EdD, MBA, LM, RMHC(ret), Senior Vice President, Michael O. Leavitt School of Health.
Western Governors University (WGU) announced the opening of a state-of-the-art nursing simulation lab in Kansas City, Missouri, for students aspiring to start their career in nursing with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (Prelicensure) degree. Scheduled to open in late 2023, the lab is a part of WGU’s Michael O. Leavitt School of Health's (LSH) expansion and investment plan to address the nursing shortage in the United States. With this expansion, WGU expects to train and educate more than 1,000 nurses in Missouri by 2026 while also contributing to the state’s economic development.
The Missouri project forms a part of the nursing simulation labs that WGU is establishing in the country to advance health equity through quality nursing education in urban as well as rural communities. Missouri’s 18,000 square feet facility will feature advanced hospital equipment, 17 patient beds in five simulation rooms, four patient exam rooms, two skills labs, five student-focused debriefing rooms, and a large multipurpose room for training and teaching. WGU’s prelicensure program and the Kansas City nursing lab are poised to meet the need for high-quality nursing degree in Missouri. In collaboration with the state and local leaders and health advocates, the Missouri lab aims to address the high demand for healthcare professionals, both nationally and regionally, in the Kansas City metro.
“WGU is committed to high quality nursing education to address the largest nursing shortage in the history of our country. We understand that for better patient outcomes, we need well-qualified nurses who the patients can closely relate to and who speak their language,” said Janelle Sokolowich, WGU Academic Vice President and Dean, Leavitt School of Health. “I look forward to the success of this project and am thankful to the Missouri General Assembly and the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development for their financial support, as well as the other leaders, including the Platte County Economic Development, Missouri Partnership, Kansas City Area Development Council, and our Missouri and local Kansas City partners for their consistent backing.”
The Missouri Hospital Association reported that there were more than 10,000 nursing students enrolled in Missouri prelicensure programs in 2020, however, nearly 1,300 qualified applicants were turned away. Missouri is not the only state to witness this situation. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, more than 90,000 qualified students in the U.S. were turned away from nursing programs in 2021 due to a multitude of reasons, including the lack of infrastructure and faculty.
“Data has shown that the two main reasons for limiting enrollments are a nursing faculty shortage and the lack of required clinical placement opportunities. Through our hybrid model of online coursework and on the ground experiential learning, coupled with the expansion of our prelicensure nursing program, WGU is removing barriers that prevent access to nursing degrees and growing the pipeline of new highly qualified nurses that are well-prepared to enter the workforce and serve the communities in which they live,” said Kimberly Kelly-Cortez, WGU Senior Associate Dean and Director of Programs (Prelicensure), Leavitt School of Health.
The American Nurses Association estimates the demand for new registered nurses (R.N.) in the U.S. to reach 1.2 million by 2030. With the concept of meeting the students where they are, the WGU BSN (Prelicensure) degree program aims to add more than 4,800 newly qualified nursing graduates to the U.S. workforce by 2027. WGU is establishing nursing simulation labs and partnering with healthcare employers in communities throughout several states for practice sites and clinical coaches/preceptors.
WGU’s competency-based learning model permits the students to pace through some parts of the BSN (Prelicensure) degree. With no prerequisites for enrollment, this hybrid program is approximately 60 percent online, with the remaining 40 percent as hands-on clinical and lab time. Students complete multiple clinical rotations in hospitals and community-based settings for each clinical course and attain the degree that prepares them for the NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) registered nurse licensing exam. Over the last five years, WGU’s first-time NCLEX-RN average pass rate has been 90.82%, markedly higher than the national average of all BSN programs as reported by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN).
WGU’s prelicensure program will steadily expand as the university continues to develop nursing labs and clinical spaces for in-person clinical and lab rotations throughout the country. The Missouri nursing lab will supplement the state’s nursing workforce needs and yield more well-qualified nurses in Missouri and the surrounding states and communities. Along with Missouri, the prelicensure degree program is also available in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, and Utah. Learn more about the BSN (Prelicensure) program here.
WGU has educated 2% of the nation’s registered nurses, representing more than 170,000 jobs in the healthcare industry. More than 20,000 nursing students are currently enrolled at LSH and more than 120,000 have successfully graduated.
