Colquitt Regional’s Ameris Bank Medical Education Center

MOULTRIE, Ga. – Colquitt Regional unveils the new Ameris Bank Medical Education Center. Opening doors for students to deepen their medical knowledge through a plethora of patient simulation scenarios.

A culmination of a decade-long endeavor, the Ameris Bank Medical Education Center emerges as a monumental achievement, encompassing 40,000 square feet of purposefully designed space. With a primary focus on augmenting capacity, this facility effectively contributes to the education and retention of healthcare learners and professionals.

“Patient safety is our number one objective here and by creating this facility, it allows us to make sure that we can test competencies of our learners before they actually get to put their hands on patients. So, this is a real win for the patient, because when they bring a patient into our emergency room or they’ve got a patient in our hospital, that nurse or that doctor has already treated maybe 100 patients with the same diagnosis that they’ve got. So, it really improves the patient’s safety because they’ve really hard-wired all the standards of care that they needed to do,” said Jimmy Lee Matney, Chief Executive Officer, President, Colquitt Regional Medical Center.

This facility is designed to accommodate various medical education disciplines, such as labor and delivery, medical-surgical, intensive care, and trauma. It features four simulation rooms equipped with high-fidelity manikins, which are programmable to emulate real-life scenarios, including parameters like heart-rate or pulse, enhancing training for healthcare providers.

Jessica Rivenbark, Vice President of Medical Education, provides insights into the distinctive features incorporated within this facility.

“We have an OB Lab that set up exactly like the hospital for training. We have a med surg floor to help train doctors in their ICU. And then we’re in our ER Trauma room, which will also double as our OR Suite for training for surgical techs and surgeons. The building also includes a skills lab facility, which has ten bays for beds to help do bedside training. We have an 18 seated computer lab, and we have the Matney Conference Center, which is classroom space that will house up to 250 people so that we can host events for the community as well as classroom space for our learners. Up stairs on the second floor, we actually have our family medicine residency clinic and our psychiatry residency clinic, and these are clinics where we welcome patients to come in. Our residents come in and train with their attending faculty,” said Jessica Rivenbark, Vice President of Medical Education.

Jessica sheds light on the partnerships that played a pivotal role in bringing the Ameris Bank Medical Education Center to fruition.

“So, we’re incredibly proud of this building. It is a gift that represents the generosity of our hospital authority in investing in the future of learning and education at Colquitt Regional; but this building also represents a public partnership and a private partnership. Ameris Bank helped get the building off the ground. UR also generously donated to the building from the employee campaign. Our volunteers donated. And, then we had our Georgia Heart campaign, which is rural tax credit, thanks to the legislature and the governor for supporting that. So, this building is truly about the public, public access and for training and education for future generations of health care providers,” said Rivenbark.

De’Andra Jacobs reporting.

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