State officials are planning to invest $62 million in nursing simulation centers on three public university campuses this year to remedy New York’s ailing nursing workforce.
The investment will fund expansions of nursing simulation labs, which use computerized mannequins and virtual reality technology to replicate real-world clinical situations, at SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Canton and Stony Brook University, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday. The state will invest $35 million to cover capital costs and each campus will provide matching funds, according to the governor’s office.
The facilities build on the state’s efforts to train more clinicians as it approaches a projected shortfall of 40,000 nurses by 2030, driven in part by Covid-19 pandemic burnout and low pay. Hochul signed a law in 2023 allowing nurses to get up to one-third of their clinical training in high-quality simulation labs to help them get credentialed and working quicker. Nurses-in-training have historically faced long waits for training slots in hospitals, creating a backlog of nurses who needed to complete their licensure to join the workforce.
The simulation center expansions will add hundreds of training slots for pre-licensure nurses statewide each year, the governor’s office said. The state projects that the lab at SUNY Buffalo – designated as a system-wide Nursing Simulation Center of Excellence – will increase nursing enrollment by 34% to reach 830 students in its first year and 67% to over 1,000 students over the next decade.
Representatives from SUNY declined to answer a question from Crain’s about when the upgrades to nursing simulation centers will be completed.
