Purpose

The purpose of the Health Care Professionals Attraction and Retention Committee is to develop and launch a collaborative strategy for health care provider attraction and retention.

Objectives

  1. To provide support for health care providers’ attraction and retention.
  2. To enhance retention of health care providers by focusing on:
    • Health care provider settling into the community,
    • Family integration into the community,
    • Family quality of life interests.
  3. To facilitate community involvement in the attraction and retention process together with health care providers, AHS and the Aspen Primary Care Network (PCN).

Outcomes

• Decrease Human Resource vacancies within our local healthcare system.
• Health care providers want to come to the community to work.
• Health care provider families are happy, engaged in and connected to the community.
• All health care providers in the community feel welcomed, appreciated and valued.

Frequently Asked Questions

Direct Stakeholders:
a. Big Lakes County council
b. Town of High Prairie Council


Indirect Stakeholders:
c. High Prairie hospital/ AHS/Local Health Care Providers
d. General public
e. Current & Potential Health Care Workers

a. Councils: Committee develops a strategy that improves both the attraction of new health professionals to the community and retaining them over a long time period (3+ years)
b. High Prairie hospital & AHS & Local Health Care Providers: Increase community engagement with Health Care Professionals within the community
c. General Public: Increase the number of doctors/nurses and other health professionals in the community
d. Current and Potential Health Care Workers: Help decrease vacancies within local healthcare system, help ensure these worker’s families are happy, engaged in and connected to the community and make them feel valued and appreciated.

Ongoing- 6-month check in’s will happen to assess performance.

a. What do we need to STOP doing:
• Ongoing- will update at 6 month assessment check points


b. What do we need to START doing:
• Help develop a promotional package for both Big Lakes County and Town of High Prairie, along with AHS can start distributing to future candidates/ attach to job postings
• Suggest ideas/strategies to both councils about where we think we need to improve in order to help attract and retain health professionals. This involves prioritizing projects/ideas based on survey data or other information provided to the committee.
• Create a welcoming committee of select members of the committee who will help show new incoming health professionals the area/services/schools/amenities, etc. This includes developing a welcoming “experience list” to offer newcomers of what to do within the community.
• Access available funds when possible.


c. What do we need to improve at doing:
• Ongoing- will update at 6 month assessment check point

a. The promotional package will be in conjunction with other Big Lakes County departments and will come down to funding to obtain the correct information. If the grant application is unsuccessful, the committee will have to look at how to get the funds to hire someone to obtain the information or look at a volunteer system or other method to obtaining the information.


b. Through review of information and correspondence or other research from other municipalities or articles, if this committee has a good idea they think council’s should implement to help health professional attraction and retention, they can make motions to recommend to administration to bring forward to council. The committee will prioritize specific projects to either do themselves or recommend to council based on the committee’s view of what is most important today to help with attraction and retention.


c. The welcoming committee will have to get created by this committee to dictate which members would like to help show new health professionals in the area around. The welcoming committee will be in charge of developing the “experience list” and finding personnel to offer to take new community members to do those experiences.


d. Committee members will send administration links and grants when they arise to help gain more funds for the group to help improve their projects/strategies and ideas. Administration will also bring funding options to the committee when they are discovered.

Through bi- monthly (every 2 months) committee meetings, with action list updates, administration updates and 6 month review assessments of this strategy document.

If successful in being part of the reason for bringing a new health professional to the community through communication with AHS, this news will be communicated to both councils