UCF is planning to significantly increase its number of nursing graduates and prepare for the greater demand and need for nurses in the future and is getting the funding to do so.

The University of Central Florida got a $5.5 million donation from the Helene Fuld Health Trust to be used for part of the school’s future new $68.78 million, 90,000-square-foot nursing building in Lake Nona.

Nursing is an in-demand field in Orlando, with hundreds of local high-wage openings. 

A 2021 report commissioned by the Florida Hospital Association and the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida projected the Sunshine State will face a shortfall of 59,100 nurses by 2035.

The money will fund the Orlando-based public university’s 12,000-square-foot Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation, Technology, Innovation & Modeling (STIM) Center within the future nursing building.

The STIM Center will feature a virtual hospital — including student queuing, pre-briefing and debriefing spaces, flexible simulation rooms, and specialty virtual-reality rooms — as well as a clinical skills exam suite with patient diagnostic tools and audio-visual recording systems to record students participating in training.

The goal is to eventually move UCF’s current College of Nursing from its main northeast campus to Lake Nona. UCF’s existing 51,000-square-foot College of Nursing has about one-fourth of its building footprint tied to STIM lab space.

The plan is to eventually grow the 260 graduates per year the nursing program currently has to 520, UCF College of Medicine spokeswoman Meghan Truhett told Orlando Business Journal. “Our goal is to increase newly registered RN graduates by 50%, with the eventual goal of doubling, and the new building and STIM center have been designed to accommodate for that growth.”

UCF has not finalized when construction will start on the new Lake Nona nursing building, but the college’s board of trustees in June will consider the project’s final funding package, which includes state, federal and philanthropic funds. The project may start construction by the end of this year, with the target of being ready for the fall 2025 semester.

This story was first reported on  by the Orlando Business Journal.