A training facility that teaches nursing and medical students how to treat patients in a simulated setting will expand under a new agreement between the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

Colorado WIN Partners in the pediatrics department at the School of Medicine will manage the operation of the 4-year-old training facility, which is called the Work, Education and Lifelong Learning, or WELLS Center.

The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus center develops and delivers health care simulation curriculum and training that incorporates highly sophisticated patient simulators for hands-on nursing and allied health care training. The goal is to give students opportunities to learn and gain confidence in practicing surgical techniques in a critical care room.

Programmable, humanlike simulators at the WELLS Center help professors demonstrate specific training scenarios on demand, including heart attacks, child birth, trauma and other emergency situations that require immediate medical care.

The simulators represent men, women, children and infants, and have pulses, veins that receive injections, moving eyes, voice capabilities and hearts and lungs with audible beating and breathing.

Colorado WIN Partners will expand the simulation center's training to offer new specialties such as operating room and emergency department training.

"We are excited about this new opportunity," said Colorado Win Partners Director Judy Emery. "We look forward to working with the WELLS Center and its partners, and expanding our relationship with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment."