Transforming an Underused Hospital Unit into a Multidisciplinary Clinical Training Lab
At Halifax Health, I helped transform an underused former hospital unit into a multidisciplinary Clinical Training Lab supporting hands-on learning, workforce development, clinical education, quality improvement, and patient experience.
The lab began as an unrealized vision for a large simulation center. By preserving the core idea and implementing it in achievable phases, we created a flexible learning environment that could evolve as organizational needs, partnerships, and funding opportunities emerged.
The Challenge
Halifax Health had initially explored plans for a multimillion-dollar simulation center. When executive sponsorship changed, the larger project did not move forward as envisioned.
The organization still had a former COVID Biocontainment Unit that offered valuable space and potential, but the area lacked clear ownership, dedicated funding, operating procedures, equipment, awareness, and an established purpose. Without someone to coordinate its development and adoption, the space risked remaining underused.
At the same time, clinical educators and operational leaders needed flexible environments for practicing skills, introducing equipment, preparing students, simulating workplace situations, and supporting learning that could not be accomplished as effectively in a traditional classroom.
The Solution
As Director of Organizational Development & Learning, I assumed responsibility for advancing the Clinical Training Lab and preserving the original vision through a more practical, phased approach.
My role included securing and organizing the space, identifying potential uses, pursuing funding, purchasing equipment, building partnerships, creating operating processes, and encouraging departments to see the lab as a shared organizational resource.
Designing a Functional Learning Environment
Developing the lab required more than furnishing an available space. It needed the structure to support multiple departments, instructors, participants, and types of learning.
I created or coordinated processes for scheduling, equipment checkout, supply management, damage reporting, and ongoing upkeep. I also worked with clinical, educational, operational, facilities, technology, and administrative partners to prepare the environment for a wide range of uses.
One early concept was a Certified Nursing Assistant Bootcamp for employees in Environmental Services, Dietary, and Laundry who were interested in entering a clinical career. The planned program influenced the development of the space and included a curriculum, potential instructor, hands-on skills area, computer testing area, and supplies aligned with Prometric testing requirements. Funding concerns ultimately prevented the bootcamp from being implemented, but the infrastructure created for it helped expand the lab’s capacity for other clinical learning activities.
Expanding the Lab’s Capabilities
Funding secured through related workforce and apprenticeship initiatives supported the purchase of equipment and training materials. These included wheelchairs, walkers, bedpans, catheter models, artificial arms, wearable simulation devices, and advanced patient simulators.
The lab eventually included two Laerdal Nursing Anne simulators, a MamaAnne obstetric simulator, and an Emily neonatal simulator. More than $150,000 supported obstetric and neonatal simulation technology, significantly expanding the organization’s ability to provide realistic, hands-on training.
The Halifax Health Foundation and internal departments also helped improve the physical environment and increase its usefulness as a professional learning space.
Building Awareness and Adoption
The lab was intentionally designed as a multidisciplinary resource rather than a space reserved for one department or type of learner.
It supported Nursing Orientation, clinical skills practice, student preparation, annual competency labs, trauma education, equipment demonstrations, life-safety training, and quality-improvement activities. Educators also used the space for escape rooms and other immersive learning experiences.
Its uses extended beyond clinical procedures. The lab supported customer-service role-play, multidisciplinary rounding practice, workforce-development activities, recruiting and career-awareness programs, and Summer Scrubs, a hands-on healthcare career camp for high school students.
A June 2025 open house helped increase awareness of the lab’s capabilities and encouraged additional departments to consider how the environment could support their own educational and operational needs.
Selected Results
The Clinical Training Lab became a flexible organizational resource with applications across learning, workforce development, and performance improvement:
- Clinical employees gained access to realistic equipment and simulation-based practice.
- Nursing Orientation and annual skills activities could include more hands-on learning.
- Students and prospective healthcare workers received greater exposure to clinical environments.
- Operational teams used the space for role-play, rounding practice, and patient-experience training.
- More than $150,000 supported advanced obstetric and neonatal simulation technology.
- More than 40 departments contributed to Summer Scrubs activities connected to the lab.
- The environment created opportunities for immersive learning, including simulations and escape rooms.
- The lab provided a foundation for future organizational and community training partnerships.
One quality initiative using the lab reported catheter performance improvement from approximately the 25th to 30th percentile to the 88th percentile, along with approximately 10,000 fewer catheter days. While the lab was one component of the broader improvement effort, it provided a safe and practical environment for reinforcing the required skills.
What This Demonstrates
This work demonstrates my ability to preserve a valuable idea even when its original plan is no longer feasible.
I can assess available resources, translate an ambitious vision into achievable phases, build cross-functional support, secure funding, and create the operational structure needed for sustained use. I can also recognize how one resource can serve multiple goals, including employee development, student education, workforce pipelines, quality improvement, patient experience, and community engagement.
Most importantly, the Clinical Training Lab demonstrates that meaningful innovation does not always require beginning with the perfect conditions. Sometimes it requires seeing the potential in what already exists and steadily building the partnerships, processes, equipment, and awareness that allow that potential to become real.