Partnering to Grow the Nursing Student Population
Registered nurses are crucial to health care, but they are in short supply—especially in South Carolina. Among the reasons are an aging population, expansive roles for nurses, and high turnover made worse by the pandemic.
Lexington Medical Center is partnering with the University of South Carolina (USC) to creatively address the issue. A 50,000-square-foot state-of-the-art nursing simulation center and teaching space will be built on the Lexington Medical Center campus to provide clinical training for USC’s nursing students. Lexington Medical Center will fund the new nursing facility and provide clinical instructors, while the university will fund equipment needed for the simulation center as well as equipment and furnishings for classroom spaces.
Nursing Education Expanded
The new building will be used primarily for clinical training of the university’s third- and fourth-year nursing bachelor’s students as well as master’s program students. The university’s health sciences interprofessional education program also will use classroom space.
In May, the college graduated 220 nurses from the Columbia campus. With this new space at Lexington Medical Center, the University of South Carolina will be able to graduate 400 nurses per year in the Midlands—an 80% increase annually.
Timeline
The groundbreaking took place on February 21, 2023 and the facility is expected to open for the first cohort of nursing students in fall 2024.
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