Engaging and Retaining Nursing Staff

Healthcare Excellence Canada, in partnership with the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), has identified several promising practices and synthesized them into summaries. These short summaries were co-developed with healthcare providers and organizations to help raise the profile of promising practices and generate discussion about how similar approaches could be adapted and applied elsewhere. The summaries offer details about:

• How communities are implementing promising practices to increase retention of their healthcare workforce.

• Key success factors for embedding community, staff and Indigenous partnerships into retention approaches.

• Practices that promote improved work-life balance and wellness.

• Strategies that healthcare leaders are using to engage staff to develop solutions.

Why this work matters

There is a pressing need to support the healthcare workforce to strengthen and restore high-quality, safe care for everyone in Canada. Providers who work in northern, rural and remote communities have unique challenges and associated support needs related to factors such as fewer onsite team members; geographic remoteness and associated weather and travel challenges; access to fewer providers, specialists and facilities, and to less equipment; a broader scope of practice compared with their urban counterparts; and a patient population that is — on average — more complex compared with patient populations in urban centres.

About this Promising Practice

The Nursing Practice Council serves as a structured, safe environment through which nurses can report clinical concerns, incidents, issues and make recommendations to improve nursing practice without the risk of professional reprisal. 

• Program: Northern and Indigenous Health

• Location: Manitoba's northern health region (excluding Churchill)