The key to better healthcare? Smarter staffing.

Feature Stories | 24 Jan 2025

An interprofessional QHS research study is tackling healthcare staffing challenges to strengthen Ontario’s integrated care system

In 2019, Ontario introduced Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) to improve how patients move through the province’s health care system. The goal was to better support integrated services across primary care, hospitals, long-term care, and community programs in the hopes of making health care more seamless and patient-centred. When done well, OHT’s integrated approach can improve coordination across all levels of care and lead to better outcomes for patients.

But here’s the challenge: the success of OHTs hinges on having the right number of staff in the right roles to address the specific needs of the regional population they serve. This is no easy task, especially in the middle of Canada’s ongoing healthcare staffing crisis.

To help solve this problem, Queen’s School of Nursing professor Dr. Joan Almost and Dr. Catherine Donnelly from Queen’s School of Rehabilitation Therapy led a study to create a strategic guide for planning local and regional healthcare human resources within these complex and multifaceted integrated care settings.

“These teams feel the impact of the health human resource crisis that Canada is experiencing, and it complicates their efforts of providing coordinated care,” says Dr. Almost.

“By proactively anticipating regional staffing needs and ensuring the right mix of professionals are in place, these teams will be best positioned to deliver seamless, patient-centered care. It is a different way of looking at staffing and guidance is scarce.”

Traditionally, staffing and human resource plans focus on individual professions, such as nursing, or specific facilities, like a single hospital or clinic. As Dr. Donnelly explains though, this narrow approach can’t always meet the broader needs of a community:

“To effectively address the health needs in a particular region, we had to adopt a more comprehensive approach—one that considers the patient population and their needs, the healthcare providers, and includes every health sector of the system.”

To gain a deeper understanding of how these factors interact, the research team worked closely with the Ontario Health Team in the Frontenac, Lennox & Addington region. They interviewed healthcare providers and key community partners while analyzing routinely collected data on population demographics, population clinical markers, and the health workforce. Using this information, they developed preliminary policy recommendations, which served as the foundation for a virtual policy workshop with health and policy leaders from across Canada. Workshop attendees were able to share their expertise to further refine and enhance the policy recommendations.

The full set of comprehensive recommendations have been posted on the project’s website and shared with the Ontario Ministry of Health, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington’s Ontario Health Team and other relevant stakeholders and policy groups. Encompassing both regional- and provincial-level recommendations, they broadly cover five key areas:

Setting up strong leadership: Governance structures must be established both provincially and within each Ontario Health Team for regional workforce planning.
Improving data systems: Investing in better data management and infrastructure will provide better tools for collecting and managing workforce and population health data.
Using proven tools: Embedding the Health Workforce Planning Toolkit into planning processes to better match staffing with patient needs.
Starting with primary care: Developing an interprofessional workforce strategy for primary care that can serve as a model for other sectors.
Partnering with health education programs: Supporting institutions as they educate and prepare more health professionals to address current and growing gaps in the workforce.

“As our study shows, regional integrated models of care do not have the data, governance structures or resources to support regional workforce planning,” says Dr. Almost.

“Change needs to happen through regional and provincial leadership with a strong impetus to plan locally and build an integrated workforce. The study’s recommendations will enhance the overall performance of [Ontario’s] healthcare system, empowering it to more effectively tackle both present and future challenges”

This project was funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Catalyst Grant: Policy Research for Health System Transformation. For more School of Nursing Research Projects, visit their website.

The key to better healthcare? Smarter staffing.

An interprofessional QHS research study is tackling healthcare staffing challenges to strengthen Ontario’s integrated care system

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