Rural and Northern Practice and its Development

To determine how the practice of health professionals in rural and northern communities can best be organized, supported and developed to improve access to care and to enhance quality of care on a sustainable basis.

To determine how the practice of health professionals in rural and northern communities can best be organized, supported and developed to improve access to care and to enhance quality of care on a sustainable basis.

Profile and Purpose

This multi-component team is comprised of researchers, clinical and policy decision makers and advisors. Their plan is to develop a supportive infrastructure to enable the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) and Northern Health Authority (NHA) together, and with other partners, namely the Ministry of Health (MOH), Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), and Yukon Health (YH), to undertake relevant and responsive research and knowledge exchange related to the nature and direction of professional practice in rural and northern settings. Their research program will focus on an area of high priority for NHA and other northern jurisdictions that have few resources and high health needs: the development of strategies to better organize, support and develop professional practice in order to enhance health, quality of care and outcomes.

The research program will have four themes:

• Health Services and Professional Practice that Ensure Quality Care
• Organizational and Systems Change to Enhance Professional Practice
• Community-Professional Interactions and
• Profession Practice with Vulnerable Populations.

The focus of activity in all four themes will be at the level of staffing, the workplace, the community and client experiences and outcomes, with the intent to develop a framework and processes that will optimize health human resource planning in rural and northern settings. By learning more about the ways in which work happens, how services are delivered, what attracts and retains professionals in rural and northern areas and how professionals contribute to sustaining rural and remote communities, the team’s goal is the development of practice, system and policy innovations that will better support health professionals and ensure safe, high quality health practices and outcomes.