Pan-Canadian Health Human Resource Strategy: 2004/2005 Annual Report

The Initiatives of the Pan-Canadian HHR Strategy

Health Canada and its stakeholders have begun work to address the many challenges our country faces with respect to HHR. Three key initiatives have been implemented under the Strategy: Pan-Canadian HHR Planning, Interprofessional Education for Collaborative Patient-Centred Practice, and Recruitment and Retention of Health Care Providers (work on these issues has also been initiated in the area of Aboriginal HHR).

Pan-Canadian HHR Planning

In 2003, the First Ministers requested that collaborative strategies be undertaken to strengthen the evidence base of Pan-Canadian HHR planning. In recent years, it has become clear that there is a lack of appropriate data, forecasting models, and research on HHR. In the case of existing data, there are gaps and a lack of consistency concerning how and what data is currently collected. In addition, the traditional method of HHR planning in Canada has limited collaboration between federal/provincial/territorial (F/P/T) governments with respect to addressing the supply and demand issues of Canada's health care workforce. This has led to duplication of efforts, and overlapping objectives.

The Pan-Canadian HHR Planning Initiative seeks to address the above issues by achieving the following objectives:

• enhance and strengthen the evidence base and capacity for coordinated HHR planning to better support F/P/T, jurisdictional and nationwide activities; and
• create a culture in which key HHR issues of jurisdictional, inter-jurisdictional and pan-Canadian concern can be identified and addressed.

Projects funded under this arm of the Strategy represent a critical step towards accomplishing the objectives of this initiative, such as collaborating with the Canadian Institute for Health Information on the development of a pan-Canadian supply-based minimum dataset and initiating the creation of five national HHR databases.

In addition to the contributions outlined within this Annual report, Health Canada also initiated and/or collaborated on a number of complimentary activities.

Interprofessional Education for Collaborative Patient-Centred Practice (IECPCP)

Recent trends towards interprofessional team-based care suggest that the roles and responsibilities of various health care providers are evolving. Changing the way we educate health care providers is key to achieving system change and to ensuring that health care providers have the necessary knowledge and skill to work effectively in interprofessional teams within the evolving health care system. In the 2002 report, Building on Values: The Future of Health Care in Canada, Roy Romanow recommended a review of "current education and training programs for health care providers to focus more on integrated provider education approaches for preparing health care teams." Furthermore, in the 2003 Accord, First Ministers agreed that among other HHR activities, collaborative strategies are to be undertaken to promote interprofessional provider education.

The IECPCP initiative seeks to enhance interprofessional patient-centred practice by accomplish the following objectives:

• promote and demonstrate the benefits of interprofessional education for collaborative patient-centred practice;
• increase the number of educators prepared to teach from an interprofessional collaborative patient-centred perspective;
• increase the number of health professionals trained for patient-centred collaborative practice before, and after, entry-to-practice;
• stimulate networking and sharing of best educational approaches for collaborative patient-centred practice; and
• facilitate interprofessional collaborative care in both the education and practice settings.

Recruitment and Retention (R&R)

There are current and impending imbalances in the supply of health care providers across a wide variety of disciplines. As the health workforce continues to age, demand for services increases, and the workplace becomes increasingly global, the need to appropriately recruit and retain HHR becomes progressively more essential. This need is often emphasized in more remote geographical areas of Canada where undersupply of providers is a significant challenge. This imbalance threatens the system's capacity to deliver health care services to Canadians.

The R&R Initiative seeks to address these issues by accomplishing the following objectives:

• increase interest in health careers, both generally and in specific areas of shortage;
• increase diversity of health care providers to reflect the Canadian mosaic;
• increase the supply of health care providers to ensure availability, when and where needed;
• reduce barriers for internationally educated health care providers;
• improve utilization and distribution of existing health care providers; and
• make current workplace environments healthier for health care workers and in doing so, support the provision of high-quality care.

Provincial/Territorial/Regional (P/T/R) Projects

In order to work collaboratively with our jurisdictional partners, and to ensure that the Strategy objectives are accomplished on a pan-Canadian basis, Health Canada invites jurisdictions to submit P/T/R project proposals. From $4M total, each P/T was allocated a base lump sum plus additional funds on a per-capita basis to be utilized between 2004/05 and 2005/06.

Aboriginal HHR Work

Health Canada has a unique relationship with First Nations and Inuit communities in working closely with them to enhance their health services and improve their health. This is an ongoing commitment of the federal government, resulting from a serious of reports and commissions on Aboriginal health, including the 'Liberal Red Book'; 'Gathering Strength: Canada's Aboriginal Action' and the 'Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples; Romanow'. Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) works to ensure that First Nations and Inuit health care needs are addressed and, where possible, integrated into larger pan-Canadian strategies.

FNIHB is directly responsible for implementing the HHR Strategy from a First Nations and Inuit perspective and seeks to accomplish the following goals:

• ensure that the current and future supply, mix and distribution of First Nations and Inuit HHR are optimized and respond to the needs of First Nations and Inuit through a coordinated approach to HHR planning;
• achieve and maintain an adequate supply of qualified health care providers who are appropriately educated, distributed, deployed and supported, to ensure culturally appropriate and safe health care services are available to First Nations and Inuit;
• increase the number of First Nations and Inuit entering into health careers, and the number of health care providers working in First Nations and Inuit communities;
• ensure that First Nations and Inuit HHR data collection is ongoing, coordinated and systemic, and that the process involves First Nations and Inuit organizations; and
• promote interprofessional education for health care workers and collaborative patient-centred practice that addresses the holistic health care needs of First Nations and Inuit. This is intended to increase client satisfaction and ultimately, to improve patient outcomes.