New nursing center this spring?

The project: Viterbo's new School of Nursing building.

The goal: Break ground in April 2010.

Silvana Richardson, dean of the School of Nursing, told Lumen that plans to start the building this spring are still underway. Contractors will aim to complete the project by August 2011, just in time for the fall semester.

Viterbo President Richard Artman confirmed April as the goal to break ground, unless plans are delayed due to lack of funding. The estimated cost of the building, including furnishings and equipment, is $15-$16 million.

Artman said that the university doesn't want to begin the project until 75 percent of funding has been raised either through gifts or pledges.

The current tally of fundraising? "About $7 million," Artman said.

The Board of Trustees is working to find more benefactors for the building. The idea, Artman said, is to find a small number of benefactors who can give large sums of money.
 

"We can turn to alumni for support," Artman said, "but most of our alumni don't have the capability to give us $1 million donations."

Possible benefactors around the community, though, are hesitant to give during these tough economic times. But the recession isn't all bad news for the building plans.

"The original estimate for the building was $20 million," Artman said. In the current economy, though, contractors are hungry for work. So, the building cost estimates have gone down, but these estimates may go back up with a delay in breaking ground.

"It's a balancing act," Artman said.

Artman has been involved in the planning stages since he began as president of Viterbo in 2006. Even before that, he said, plans for the building were in the works after nursing faculty members asked for new facilities.

"Our nursing facilities are simply inferior," Artman said. The John Brophy Nursing Center was originally an elementary school in the 1950s. It was renovated in the 1970s for the School of Nursing, which includes both nursing and dietetics majors.

The new School of Nursing facility will be built south of the Brophy Center, taking over Parking Lot B. Artman said that the university will consider additional parking areas to make up for lost space.
 

The new facility has been planned to accommodate an expected nursing shortage.

According to a Viterbo planning report for the new nursing building, the average age of registered nurses in Wisconsin is 47.6. The average age of nursing faculty is 50.3. Thus, according to the report, many nurses and faculty are expected to retire in 10-15 years, resulting in a shortage of practicing nurses and nursing educators.

To accommodate more students, the new facility will consist of two buildings: a five- story building and a three-story building. The Brophy Center is approximately 27,000 square feet; the new facilities will cover approximately 67,000 square feet.

The additional space, Artman said, will allow for a 25 percent increase in enrollment of BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) students. The new facility will also enable the university to implement a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree program. This program will prepare nursing educators and advanced practice nurses.

Although Viterbo's accreditation was renewed last year for another 10 years, Artman said the new building is still necessary.

"We cannot grow our program without more building space," Artman said.
Richardson agreed. "We are using our current facilities to their full capacity," she said. Out of more than 400 current baccalaureate nursing students at Viterbo, only 88 clinical slots are available each year.
"We fill those slots up every year, and then some," Richardson said.

The new facility aims to accommodate this shortage in clinical opportunities for students. A full floor of simulation labs will be "the showcase for the university," Artman said.

Right now, the School of Nursing has one "Sim-Man" to simulate patient responses during certain procedures. This Sim-Man is currently stored in a closet in the Brophy Center.

The new facility will have a full floor of simulation labs and four Sim-Mans. Nurses can practice procedures in the labs, and faculty can control patient responses. In the new control room, faculty can cause the simulated patients to stop breathing or even start screaming, and nurses will have to adapt.

The simulation labs are based on Mayo Clinic's state of the art labs in Rochester, Artman said. The same architects used at Mayo have designed the simulation labs for Viterbo.
The labs will help to reduce clinical time in hospitals by one-third. If a clinical student is having trouble drawing blood, Artman said, they can go back to the lab and practice 100 times on Sim-Man instead of actual patients.

Nurses from local clinics will also be able to use the labs to practice new procedures.
Viterbo's School of Nursing must grow in order to serve the community, Artman said. Out of all private institutions in the state, Viterbo is the largest provider of baccalaureate nurses in the state. Locally, Franciscan Skemp and Gundersen Lutheran employ over 10,000 people. They are a large factor in La Crosse's economy.

Still, Artman admits that the fundraising issues could cause delays. The April 2010 deadline is only a goal at this point. But, if the deadline is missed, Artman said, "We'll keep at it."

Future Plans for the John Brophy Nursing Center

When the new facility is complete, Artman said that the Brophy Center will not be torn down. The building itself is still structurally sound in terms of foundation and roofing.

In the future, the Brophy Center will be used as a "swing building" for temporary purposes. If other building renovations take place in the future, faculty may have temporary offices in the center.