Alberta develops offshore assessment facility for internationally educated nurses

To cope with critical shortage of internationally trained healthcare professionals, the federal government of Canada is supporting over 40 initiatives under Internationally Educated Health Professionals Initiative, which provided $75 million over five years to provinces and territories and NGOs to address the issue.

The Alberta Health and Wellness is one such project and, with federal contribution of $536,000, it has launched a new pilot project to fast track entry of internationally trained nurses into Alberta's healthcare system through an “offshore assessment” program.

With this new offshore pilot project, 36 nurses will be able to complete the assessment process overseas, thereby reducing the amount of time between landing in Canada and entering the work force. During this process, their language, knowledge, and competencies will be measured against Canadian Registered Nurse (RN) competency standards and the nurses will be informed if they require any additional learning or training before immigrating and starting to work in Alberta.

The pilot project, which will run until March 31, 2008, will allow nurses in London, Dublin, Dubai, Qatar, and elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates to undergo a Substantial Equivalent Competency Assessment before immigration to Canada. Traditionally, foreign-trained nurses who wanted to work in Alberta had to take assessment exams at Mount Royal College in Calgary.

The project aims to speed up the licensure process by enabling internationally educated nurses to undergo a Substantial Equivalent Competency Assessment before they immigrate to Canada. The initiative is an important component of the broader health human resources strategy, which is essential to ensuring timely access to care in communities across the country. The project will also increase Alberta’s capacity to assess internationally educated nurses with the training of additional assessors.

The newly funded project is a collaboration between Mount Royal College’s Internationally Educated Nurses Assessment Centres in Calgary and The College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta.

Over the past several months, Alberta has taken number of initiatives to recruit internationally educated nurses in particular for immigration into the province.

Earlier this year, three Calgary Health Region representatives traveled to Ireland, England and two Persian Gulf countries in a bid to recruit between 50 and 60 registered nurses to work in the local health system. During the two-week recruitment trip, officials interviewed about 110 candidates in several cities, including Dublin and London as well as Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Doha, Qatar.

A "hiring blitz" in December last year allowed the health authority to conduct group interviews and conditionally hire large numbers of health professionals. Similar events were also taken place in January and February this year.

CHR also launched an ad campaign in newspapers around the country to attract nurses from other provinces, and the health authority has advertised for medical professionals in international journals.

The University of Calgary has also increased the number of nursing students it is training.