High-quality medical care combines empathetic attention to patient needs with high-order diagnostic and clinical skills.

Yet access to clinical education is a challenge for many students and medical professionals in Colorado. Limited training opportunities and a shortage of sites and staff able to mentor students combine to create a bottleneck in the preparation of much-needed nurses and physicians. The problem exists both for students who must prepare for their careers and for practicing professionals who wish to enhance their skills.

Now, though, clinical education in Colorado takes a giant stride forward — with the Work, Education and Lifelong Learning Simulation (WELLS) Center.

For the first time in Colorado, one facility offers a complete array of state-of-the-art patient simulation tools for building clinical knowledge. Even more exciting, high-speed datacasting technology makes this unique resource available remotely. Students, faculty and practicing nurses and physicians from throughout Colorado can enhance their diagnostic and clinical skills at the WELLS Center either on-site or on-line.

› Download a PDF of the WELLS Center brochure

Here’s what you’ll find at the WELLS Center:

• Computer-driven mannequins that can simulate virtually any type of clinical experience - from emergency room situations to surgery, from heart attacks to births to allergic reactions and much more.

• Visible Human Dissector™, a cutting-edge, interactive computer program for learning anatomy and virtual dissection. The Visible Human Dissector™ will be configured to work in conjunction with the mannequins for a truly integrated learning opportunity

• High-speed data-casting, made possible by Rocky Mountain PBS in partnership with the Colorado Dept. of Labor & Employment, to bring these advanced simulation tools to schools, hospitals and other sites statewide.

Housed at the University of Colorado Hospital’s Fitzsimons campus, the WELLS Center represents a unique collaboration among educators, providers and policymakers.

The WELLS Center is taking clinical education in Colorado to a new level. We hope you’ll join us on our journey.

“The days of medical and nursing students practicing on real patients might be numbered. Today, many doctors and nurses in training are making their first diagnoses — and their first mistakes — on plastic, wires and computer circuits rather than flesh and blood.”
—  eSchool News, Aug. 4, 2004

This project was funded in part by a grant awarded to the Colorado Dept. of Labor and Employment under the President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative, as implemented by the US Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Division.

Project Partners

• Colorado Department of Labor and Employment
• Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence
• Colorado Simulation Development Group
• University of Colorado Hospital
• University of Colorado Health Sciences Simulation Center
• Touch of Life
• Colorado Workforce Development Council
• Colorado Department of Education
• Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting System
• Colorado Area Health Education Centers

For more information about the WELLS Center,
call 303-326-0674 ext. 10
or e-mail wells_admin@coloradonursingcenter.org

› Download WELLS Center Map