Building capacity for a sustainable and equitable healthcare workforce in rural, remote and Indigenous communities by implementing innovative team-based hybrid care

Healthcare provider shortages in rural, remote, and Indigenous (RRI) communities are an important problem. In British Columbia, ‘hybrid care’ programs link health professionals through technology to treat patients (virtual care) alongside local providers (in-person care), bridging service gaps when providers are unavailable and supporting local providers. However, not all RRI communities have embraced such programs. We seek to understand the complexities of implementing ‘hybrid care’, how to make this approach culturally safe and adaptable to unique community needs, while improving healthcare workforce sustainability. Our learnings will be applied to developing service delivery guidelines and ‘hybrid care’ policy scalable across Canada.