Mind the Safety Gap in Health System Transformation: Stop RN Replacement
Nineteen thousand respondents completed RNAO’s action alert to stop RN replacement and fragmented models of nursing care delivery. Now, we are moving to the second phase of our advocacy to #StopRNreplacement.In 2015, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) released three policy proposals aimed at improving patient and family-centred care across the health system. RNAO supports re-orienting the health system within community-based care; increasing public transparency; providing co-ordinated and integrated services that match population health needs; and monitoring health system performance and improving accountability. As Ontario’s largest regulated health profession, nursing will be instrumental in implementing the visionary plans to transform the health system.
It is critical that effective nursing skill-mix and organizational models of nursing care delivery are in place across the health system. RNAO has spent the last year conducting a comprehensive analysis of the MOHLTC’s plan and comparing it to nursing human resource trends and the evidence on organizational models of nursing care delivery. We have identified a shocking gap. Bold health system transformation ideas are presented, but an interprofessional health human resource (HHR) plan to fuel these changes is nowhere to be found. As a result, some organizations are depleting their RN workforce as a short-sighted answer to balance budgets. At a time when the health system is shifting to provide care for only the sickest of the sick in hospitals, and when people in the community have more complex health needs, it is simply wrong to replace RNs with less qualified health-care providers or revert back to outdated organizational models of nursing care delivery that fragment patient care.
RNAO is calling for a moratorium on nursing skill mix changes until a comprehensive interprofessional HHR plan is completed and an outright stop to fragmented organizational models of nursing care delivery. These are just some of the recommendations RNAO has presented in the report.
We ask you to urge Premier Kathleen Wynne and Health Minister Eric Hoskins to accept the recommendations presented in the report: Mind the Safety Gap in Health System Transformation: Reclaiming the Role of the RN.
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