Eastern's nursing 'sim labs' fully equipped thanks to CHEFA grant

by Noel Teter and Michael Rouleau

Willimantic, CT (01/09/2026) — Eastern Connecticut State University's Department of Health Sciences and Nursing was awarded a $75,000 grant from the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority (CHEFA) to benefit the University's nursing program. The grant will be used to purchase new simulation equipment for Eastern's three on-campus simulation labs, which prepare nursing students for real-world clinical scenarios.

Purchased equipment includes a medication administration cabinet, two specialized hospital beds, a hospital linen shelf, and multiple anatomical "task trainers" for dressing wounds, catheterization, and central venous procedures.

Speaking of the "med cabinet," Christina Nadeau, director of nursing clinical education, said that safe medication administration is a key area addressed by the CHEFA grant. "The one piece of equipment I really wanted for the sim lab was a medication administration cabinet," she said, noting that they are uncommon in simulation labs due to their high cost.

"Students are going to be able to pull medications, scan their barcodes, and safely administer them exactly as they would in the clinical setting," said Nadeau. "This equipment makes our program stand out and gives our students an advantage."

The grant also enabled the purchase of two new hospital beds for the on-campus sim labs, similar to the high-tech industry-standard beds in Eastern's off-campus sim lab at Windham Hospital.

Nadeau explained: "We needed to mimic in the real-world setting, which are highly specialized, made to reduce pressure injuries. It may sound simple to operate a bed, but these beds are very computerized."

Having spent most of her career in clinical settings, Nadeau has seen firsthand the negative consequences of not knowing how to operate a modern hospital bed: "You wouldn't believe how many times I've been in the clinical space and the patient has fallen and sustained serious injury because the healthcare worker thought they set the bed alarm, but they didn't do it properly."

Additional safety training, which the grant helps to enable, also stands to benefit hospitals, according to Nadeau. "If a patient develops an injury or infection that the health insurer determines was hospital-acquired, Medicare and other health insurers will not reimburse any cost of the care associated with the injury or infection," she said.

"The hospital has to pay for all of that, so it's all connected to patient safety and satisfaction, and the solution has to start with nursing programs."

Eastern's nursing program was created with funding from the CT Health Horizons Initiative and with an innovative academic-clinical partnership with Hartford HealthCare to address the nursing shortage in Connecticut, particularly in Windham County. Among the fastest-growing programs on campus, Eastern has 122 nursing students across its first three cohorts, with an expected 75 new students in fall 2026 - the program's cap per cohort.

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