NATIONAL NURSE SCHEDULER (NNS)

Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) has a requirement for a contractor to provide a national electronic scheduling system (National Nurse Scheduler – NNS) for Health Care Professionals (HCPs) providing services in (the predominantly northern) communities in which First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) provides primary and public health care.

The objective of the contract is to ensure that ISC obtains an NNS that is secure, bilingual (English and French) and accessible to all pertinent FNIHB staff that are essential in ensuring that HCPs, with the required qualifications, are scheduled and present, in the Health Facilities when needed.

One of the mandates of ISC, FNIHB is to improve access to high-quality services and the well-being of Indigenous Peoples in communities across Canada. FNIHB is also mandated to ensure the availability of, or access to, health care services for Indigenous communities.

In order to achieve this, FNIHB requires an NNS (utilized by Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec regions, and Nursing Relief Coordination Unit-NRCU) for HCPs providing services in northern communities. Based on departmental/ operational requirements, Saskatchewan and Atlantic regions may also be included in the scope of this project.

In addition to enhancing ISC, FNIHB’s ability to deliver its mandate, NNS will allow ISC to be more agile and responsive to patient care by optimizing the workforce in a cost-effective manner. As well, NNS must have the ability to perform analytics and generate comparison(s), historical and operational reports.

NNS will be pivotal in supporting the provision of safe and quality health care services in Health Facilities by ensuring the right staff are deployed to the correct location at the right time. The importance of HCPs and clinical staff to have ongoing access to a national, easy-to-use scheduling system cannot be overemphasized, and will be achieved with the deployment of NNS. This aligns with the following principles within the Departmental Results Framework:

• Health/ Departmental Result 3 – Indigenous Peoples have access to quality federally-funded health services; and,
• Children and families/ Departmental Result 4 – Indigenous Peoples are culturally safe and socially well.

Key stakeholders (of NNS) include:

• HCPs - who provide services at Health Facilities and would rely on NNS for their itinerary;
• Nurse Management/ Nurses-in-Charge (NICs)/ Schedulers - who perform clinical and management-related responsibilities and schedule the HCPs;
• Data Team - who need to produce regular and required staffing reports;
• Travel Team - who enter HCP travel arrangements into NNS and make changes as needed;
• FNIHB (senior management) - who need to ensure that the FNIHB mandate is delivered; and,
• Indigenous Peoples/ clients - whom FNIHB provides health care services to.

The scope, or work, that is required to complete this procurement/ project includes the following stages:

• Acquisition (of NNS);
• Training;
• Implementation;
• Migration;
• Development;
• Testing;
• Phased-in/ agile “Go Live”; and,
• Continued support/ technical assistance and guidance.

ISC funds and/ or delivers primary care services, accessible on a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (24/7) basis in over 50 Health Facilities serving approximately 111,000 First Nations clients in remote, semi-isolated and isolated First Nations communities, where access to provincial services is limited or non-existent. As of May 2022, this care is provided by approximately 269 full-time equivalent positions and delivered by approximately 390 nursing personnel.

Primary and public health care is considered a mandatory or an essential service under ISC’s program mandate, as it has a direct impact on the health and safety of individuals and the population. In these communities, HCPs working out of Health Facilities are often the only health service(s) providers. HCPs work in pairs or small groups, often with little to no support from other medical professionals, providing services to respond to urgent community health care needs and medical emergencies whenever they arise.

ISC is committed to both closing the gaps in health outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities as indicated in the Truth and Reconciliation’s 94 Calls to Action as well as the Accessible Canada Act target to achieve a barrier-free Canada. ISC will continue to strive to ensure compliance with these objectives by engaging with our partners to offer primary health services through a client-centered approach, ensuring that services are available to community members in a manner that facilitates access to all.

Maintaining consistent HCP staffing across Health Facilities is crucial to ensuring the delivery of high-quality health care services. Inconsistency, or any irregularities, in the scheduling of HCPs presents a serious risk to patient safety, exponentially increased by the ongoing HCP shortages across Canada.

Expected business outcomes following the deployment of NNS include:

• FNIHB (senior management) are able to deliver on their mandate;
• (NNS) Users will have the ability to perform complex scheduling of HCPs in Indigenous communities and also to study trends, including the ability to report on HCP shortages and gaps in FNIHB’s ability to provide necessary services;
• HCPs will have a secure and easy access to a national electronic scheduling system in order to access their itinerary;
• FNIHB’s data team are able to generate accurate staffing reports and;
• Indigenous Peoples, and their communities are able to access health care as and when needed.