September 19, 2005 Source: Dalhousie University:
http://www.dal.ca/news/media/2005/2005-10-19.html Dalhousie hosts National Conference on Mainstreaming Health Human Resources Dalhousie University's School of Public Administration is hosting the National Conference Mainstreaming Health Human Resources Innovations Conference on September 20-22, 2005. The conference goals are to discuss and deliberate on how to mainstream some of the innovative Health Human Resources strategies and practices which have been taking place across the country. Federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh had announced a federal contribution of $228,952 to Dalhousie University's School of Public Administration to organize and host the conference. The federal funding for the conference comes from the Pan-Canadian Health Human Resources Strategy, which annually receives $20 million. The Strategy seeks to support a stable health care workforce with the right number and mix of health professionals, and a renewed health care system which provides care to Canadians when they need it, wherever they live in this country. The National Conference will bring together over 100 representatives from governments and health professions who will discuss changes in the way health care is delivered and issues such as shortages and imbalances in the mix and geographic distribution of health care providers. Deployment strategies responding to such challenges range from recruitment and retention initiatives to promoting interdisciplinary collaboration in health care teams, expanding the scope of practice of health care professions, greater use of nurse practitioners and the use of telehealth and telemedicine. The conference will share information on innovative approaches in different parts of Canada and identify best practices that have the potential to be more widely applied. The outcomes of this Conference will enable deployment of strategies and potential blueprints for innovative practices to be implemented in other jurisdictions and to be further studied by the academic community. The four themes that form the basis for the discussion at the National Conference will be: redefining roles of health professionals, optimizing working toward full scope of practice, promoting interprofessional collaboration and changing delivery mechanism to support HHR innovations. "This conference will advance the work the Government of Canada is doing with provincial and territorial governments and the health care community to ensure that Canadians receive timely access to quality care from the health professionals they need," said Mr. Geoff Regan, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Member of Parliament for Halifax West. "This project will assist efforts to provide appropriate, effective, efficient and sustainable health care services." He noted that federal, provincial and territorial governments agreed to accelerate their work on health human resources in the Ten-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care, which was signed by all First Ministers in September 2004. As a centre for research and teaching on policy and management in the public sector, Dalhousie University's School of Public Administration is well positioned to plan the conference and to facilitate the dissemination of its findings across the country. "The School of Public Administration's links with the research community, decision-makers and public managers put it in an ideal position to bring together innovators from the academic sector and all levels of government to promote best practices in the use of health human resources," said Martine Durier-Copp, the Project Director. About Dalhousie: Dalhousie is a comprehensive, research-intensive university with more than 15,500 students. In The Scientist magazine, it was recently named one of the best non-commercial places to work as a scientific researcher outside the United States. Media inquiries, contact:
John MacDonald,
Faculty of Management
john.j.macdonald@dal.ca
Phone: (902) 494-2542
| 