Research Team
Diane Doran, RN, PhD, FCAHS
Dan Laporte, Research Manager, NHSRU
Sang Nahm, Data Analyst, NHSRU
Laureen Hayes, Research Officer,
NHSRU Roshan Khan, Research Officer, NHSRU
Executive Summary
Ontario faces enormous health care challenges driven by realities that include: a shortage of nurses, an aging workforce, issues in inter-professional care, advancing technologies, increasing patient complexity, and a need for chronic-disease management. Underlying all of this is a recognized concern about the available supply of the nursing workforce and projected shortages of Registered Nurses in Canada of almost 60,000 full-time equivalents (FTEs) by 2022 (Tomblin Murphy, 2009). Effective strategies are needed to address the impending nursing shortage, particularly in sectors such as home care and Long-Term Care (LTC), where demand for health care is expected to increase and where disparities in nursing services supply and demand have been the most glaring. Furthermore, new possibilities in service delivery are being created, through the Ontario provincial government’s Aging at Home (AAH) strategy (MOHLTC, 2009), which emphasize community-based partnerships and an integrated continuum of services. Researchers, home care nurses, nurse leaders and policy makers need to work together to generate the evidence required to support the goals of effective chronic disease management and improved outcomes for Ontario’s diverse population.
This study was designed to generate evidence about effective strategies for recruiting and retaining home care nurses and sustaining home care nursing capacity, in order to meet the health needs of Ontario’s diverse population. It is the researchers’ intention that the findings of this study will assist with creating solutions for attracting nurses to under-resourced areas by improving the prospects for rewarding, long term employment for home care nurses through the creation of policy change. A second goal of this applied research project is to inform policy decisions, through valid research, about effective strategies for optimizing the utilization of RNs and RPNs in community practice settings.
The primary objectives of the study currently underway at the Nursing Health Services Research Unit (NHSRU) are to:
- Determine how decisions, on the utilization and allocation of Registered Nurses (RNs) and Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs), are currently being made in Ontario home care provider agencies; investigate the feasibility of, and provide input into, the development of an RN/RPN Utilization Toolkit for the home care sector.
- Compile a detailed demographic profile of nurses working in the home care sector and identify areas of concern/strength related to current trends in the home care nursing workforce.
- Evaluate the unique challenges of attracting and retaining early, mid and late career nurses to the home care sector and describe factors or policy initiatives that may be instrumental in attracting new graduates to community nursing as an employment choice.
To date, researchers have completed a detailed demography of visiting home care nurses working in Ontario, and are in the process of administering surveys to a stratified sample of 900 early, mid and late career nurses in this sector. Concurrent with the survey administration, interviews with a sample of home care (HC) decision makers are being conducted by NHSRU staff. Interview questions have been developed to address issues associated with the allocation and utilization of RN/RPNs in Ontario’s home care settings.