MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — Georgia College & State University will become the state’s central training hub for health care simulation after landing a $2 million grant aimed at easing Georgia’s nursing shortage, the university said Tuesday.
The money comes from the GREAT Health Program run by the state Department of Community Health and was awarded through the University System of Georgia. It will grow the Milledgeville campus’s Simulation and Translational Research Center, where future health workers log the clinical practice they need for professional certification.
The need is large. Federal health workforce projections show Georgia about 12,370 nurses short by the end of this year, a 12% gap. Data from the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce show roughly four in ten nurses in the state are 50 or older, and shrinking access to clinical placements is limiting how many new nurses schools can train.
The grant pays for seven new faculty and staff jobs at the center and doubles how many students can enroll in its accredited Healthcare Simulation Certificate program, a graduate program that teaches nurse educators across Georgia to run simulation training at their own schools. University officials describe it as the only program of its kind in the state.
New equipment on the list includes 21 high-fidelity patient manikins, nine wearable devices for actors who play patients, IV pumps, 28 hospital beds and a 3D printer. The center now supplies more than 33,000 clinical hours a year to nursing students, and its director expects that to reach about 38,000. Seniors in the nursing program will be able to take advanced simulation courses in psychiatric, pediatric, obstetric and critical or emergency care.
In October the center earned the Society for Simulation in Healthcare’s top-level accreditation, making Georgia College the second school in the University System to reach that level.
The same state program is also offering smaller grants to rural nursing schools. Approved nurse training programs in Georgia’s 126 federally designated rural or partly rural counties can apply for about five awards of $90,000 each to buy simulation equipment, and the application deadline was pushed back to Nov. 20. Winners must spend the money by Sept. 1, 2027.
Filed under: Atlanta GA Health News
