UND’s SIM-ND program receives $1.3 million grant

‘Game-changer’ grant will help UND continue to enhance North Dakota’s health care workforce

Editor’s note: This story first appeared in For Your Health, the newsletter published by the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

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The Simulation In Motion – North Dakota (SIM-ND) program at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences Simulation Center has been awarded $1.3 million grant by the Economic Development Administration.

Calling the grant a “game-changer,” Jessi Nicola, Program Administrator of the SMHS Simulation Center, praised her team for their efforts to acquire new mobile simulation equipment for use across North Dakota.

“We’re excited about all the ways this award allows us to continue to expand and fulfill our mission while enhancing North Dakota’s health care workforce and building resiliency in the health care professionals throughout North Dakota,” said Nicola. “Ultimately, this work will mean improved patient care and health care outcomes in our state.”

SIM-ND is a statewide simulation education program managed out of the UND SMHS Simulation Center. Since 2013, SIM-ND has been bringing hands-on training to health care workers throughout North Dakota, from rural paramedics and firefighters to national guardsmen, medical residents, and physicians. The program does so using four 44-foot mobile simulation lab trucks that offer two separate simulation spaces and provide versatile and unique learning opportunities. With the help of high-fidelity human simulators, SIM-ND can immerse learners in a safe but realistic learning environment.

The new award will help SIM-ND procure four new mobile simulation vans, said SIM-ND Coordinator Tawni Harvala, allowing the SMHS to continue its outreach medical training efforts across North Dakota in a more efficient way.

“The vans will be a great addition to our fleet,” Harvala explained. “They will offer additional simulation space and are better equipped to handle our extreme North Dakota weather. Additionally, the grant will allow SIM-ND to purchase updated simulation equipment, including new state-of-the-art infant simulators, simulated ventilators, and simulated defibrillators.”

Harvala added that since the program’s inception, SIM-ND has helped train more than thirty thousand individual health care learners via its medical simulation activities in communities across North Dakota.

Initially funded by a grant from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, SIM-ND began as a partnership between UND, North Dakota’s six tertiary hospitals in Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, and Minot, and the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Today, the program maintains relationships with the DHS and three of North Dakota’s major health providers: Altru Health System, Essentia Health (Fargo), and Sanford Health (Fargo).

“Our charge, as North Dakota’s only School of Medicine and Health Sciences, is preparing health providers of all backgrounds, often for rural practice,” said SMHS Dean Dr. Marjorie Jenkins. “Because rural providers can’t always come to UND for training, our SIM-ND program allows us to reach out to communities across the state. This grant will help us continue to do just that.”