Backed by 21st-century teaching, Calgary’s Bow Valley College is hoping its grads will help fill Alberta’s increasing demand for healthcare professionals.
With nursing being listed among the most in-demand jobs in Alberta and a study commissioned by the college and conducted by EY Canada saying that Alberta will face significant healthcare labour shortages without new investments in training, Bow Valley College (BVC) has increased its student intakes and altered its programming, all in an effort to increase both graduation numbers and graduate readiness.
The study was not all that surprising for BVC’s Associate Dean for Practical Nurses, Jacinda Daley, who said that waitlists for the college’s nursing program are consistently near capacity. To ease the competition, BVC has created more flexible pathways, added a new spring student intake, and brought virtual reality learning into the mix.
“We’re seeing a bit of a trend with some of our students. Many of them have commitments outside of school; they may be working, they may have young families that they’re trying to support as well,” Daley said.
“We have some different offerings in the Practical Nursing program, one being our main, traditional offering where students come to campus, but we also have blended offerings as well, where the majority of their theoretical courses will be offered online at a set time during the day, so they can log in from the comfort of their home or wherever they may be.”
The blended offerings work well on all fronts, Daley said, allowing students and instructors day-to-day flexibility, while the school increases enrolment without affecting campus space.
“Sometimes coming downtown to the campus can pose a challenge for some folks. So most of our role in expansion has been to increase some of those seats within the blended offering.”
Thus far, results from the course swaps are trending positively for the school. For 2025-26, baseline enrolment is sitting at 770 students, a 10 per cent increase year over year.
Similarly, Health Care Aide students have increased from 186 students per year to 416 students for the 2025-26. With the help of 14 new health care program areas currently under development, the school’ Health Care Centre of Excellence is aiming to increase enrolment from 2,500 Full Load Equivalents to 11,000 by 2035-36, with graduates up from 750 to 2,500 annually, according to a BVC-issued release.
Simulation centre helps provide on-site clinical preparation
With the increasing student counts, a major issue for the school has been clinical placements. The school’s new model allows for a third of placements to be done right on campus.
“We have on-site clinical placements, and we have off-site clinical placements. In the Practical Nursing program, we have adopted simulation, where a portion of those clinical hours are completed within our simulation center,” Daley said.
In the simulation centre, students wear virtual reality goggles and face common scenarios in a controlled setting. Daley said that through the simulation, they’re able to prepare students, not only for their external clinicals, but also for their post-grad employment.
“It allows us to respond to real-time changes and trends that we’re seeing within the workforce, because we can change those scenarios and we often do based on feedback from those working in professional practice, from our stakeholders, our professional advisory committees and students themselves,” she said.
“Right now, with our practical nursing program, we are replacing up to 30 per cent of our clinical hours with simulation. Going forward in the next couple of years for us to be able to maintain growth in enrollment, our goal is to reach 50 per cent.”
Clare Howland, program chair in the School of Health and Wellness, said that the sim-environment exposes students to complex, emotional cases, in a low-stakes environment. Because of the simulation’s virtual nature, it is easy for instructor and student to review material instantly.
“Pivoting to the simulated patient encounters, it allows us in a controlled environment, to put the students with patients that may be acutely ill but certainly aren’t going to die, allow the students a safe environment to see if they can bring their knowledge to practice and if they can integrate what they’ve learned in their theoretical and lab classes into a real life situation,” Howland said.
“Afterwards, we can talk about what went well and where their knowledge gaps are. It’s really allowed us to get the students comfortable working to their full scope, try to get them comfortable with some of the challenging emotions that may come up, so that when they hit the floor with a license in their hand, they’re hopefully a little bit more prepared for the type of patients they’ll encounter.”
