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Framingham, MA (July, 25 2017) – MassBay Community College is pleased to announce the grant-funded purchase of a Victoria® Advanced Birthing and Neonatal simulator mannequin to train nursing, emergency medical technician (EMT), and paramedicine students in responding to labor and delivery situations. This birthing suite package was purchased with a Massachusetts Skills Capital Grant, which was awarded to MassBay in March 2017. College faculty will use the simulators as a part of their classroom instruction beginning this Fall.
Victoria® is a proportioned full-term adult female simulator with lifelike appearance from head to toe and a full-term abdomen that relaxes and firms with every contraction. Inside her pregnant belly is baby Madison, an unborn fetus floating inside an amniotic sack, providing tactile feedback and resistance consistent with a real life birth. Her components are designed inside making her a completely wireless patient simulator, able to be transported to different settings and locations, giving another realistic layer to the simulation. The versatility of Victoria® allows a continuous event flow for students to train in first responding to patients in labor and delivery, transportation of patient to hospital operating rooms, and team training in triage and team hand-offs, all uninterrupted to improve performance areas where mistakes can often occur.
Victoria® and baby Madison will provide a better learning experience for students with their innovative features mimicking human physiology, providing students to monitor vital signs and fetal heart tones using medical equipment to support the possible distress like fetal monitor, ECG monitor, defibrillator, pulse oximeter and automatic blood pressure monitoring device. Victoria® and Madison’s fully programmable designs ensure students can train and interpret critical information and follow protocols in an array of scenarios that are true to life. For example, Victoria can yell that she is in pain or have a seizure and baby Madison can be programed to turn blue for low oxygen levels or can be changed to the breech positioning for a caesarean section birth.
“Victoria® and baby Madison will provide a unique training experience for our EMT, Paramedic and Nursing students, as no two labors are the same, we must prepare our students for the unexpected to ensure patient safety and the highest quality of care,” said MassBay Dean of Health Science Lynne Davis. “These simulation mannequins require the students to react in real life scenarios, while creating a team atmosphere students will encounter when they’re in the patient care environment.”
The Massachusetts Skills Capital Grant was awarded to MassBay in March 2017. The total grant was for $318,547 with $113,047 used to purchase Victoria, baby Madison and the Birthing Suite Package. The 2016 Massachusetts Economic Development Bill established three years of funding for the Workforce Skills Cabinet to administer the Skills Capital Grant Program. The program’s intent is to increase the capacity and quality of vocational training and education by providing funds to eligible schools and institutions for the purchase/installation of equipment that would support vocational/technical training, upgrades and expansion of career technical education, and training of high-quality career pathway programs that align with regional economic and workforce development priorities for in-demand industries.
MassBay Community College was recently ranked by the Brookings Institution as one of the top schools for value added and earned salaries in the workforce. Ranked #1 for 2-year colleges in Massachusetts, #2 in New England and ranked #16 nationally. The College’s facilities in Wellesley Hills, Framingham and Ashland house day, evening and weekend classes that meet the needs of degree-seeking students and career minded life-long learners. Online options provide convenience and allow faculty to facilitate the learning process. Since its founding in 1961, MassBay has been accredited by several governing bodies and strives to meet the needs of the diverse local communities it serves.