The state will provide a $10 million grant to Hartford Hospital to support a major expansion of its Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced following Friday’s State Bond Commission meeting.

The center, which will gain 30,000 square feet in the expansion, is a training facility that allows health care professionals to simulate different types of patient acute crises.

“Hartford Hospital has an important role to play in Connecticut’s resurgence in the bioscience and health services sector,” Malloy said. “This expansion project is about investing in innovation, research and training — all the things we need to do as a state to stay competitive.”

The governor and the General Assembly agreed in October 2011 to invest $291 million in a new genetics research institution in Farmington run by The Jackson Laboratory, a world-renowned bioscience research enterprise based in Maine.

Malloy and the legislature also approved an $860 million bioscience initiative last year to  modernize the University of Connecticut Health Center and improve its research facilities and staff.

The governor added that while the Hartford Hospital project “will certainly create good paying jobs with good benefits, this state-of-the-art training facility is really about creating a Hartford Hospital that draws the world’s top doctors and other health care professionals to our capital city for years to come.”

Keith has spent most of his 31 years as a reporter specializing in state government finances, analyzing such topics as income tax equity, waste in government and the complex funding systems behind Connecticut’s transportation and social services networks. He has been the state finances reporter at CT Mirror since it launched in 2010. Prior to joining CT Mirror Keith was State Capitol bureau chief for The Journal Inquirer of Manchester, a reporter for the Day of New London, and a former contributing writer to The New York Times. Keith is a graduate of and a former journalism instructor at the University of Connecticut.

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