Bonjour. Good afternoon.
As the president-elect of the Canadian Nurses Association, representing nearly 145,000 registered nurses from across the country, thank you for the opportunity to present the nursing profession's solutions for optimizing the health of our nation while improving the sustainability of health care.
In the context of today's global economic climate, it is clear that action must be taken to find a more efficient way of meeting Canada's health needs. Canada's registered nurses are concerned that our publicly funded health care system still favours a model based on episodic treatment of illness and acute in-patient or out-patient care delivery, rather than a focus on health promotion, disease prevention, and optimal use of health care professionals.
The Canadian Nurses Association's recommendations support the need for a federally led accountability framework that leverages innovations and new models of health care delivery to address key health systems and health challenges. Our recommendations encompass the three priorities of ensuring capacity, optimizing efficiency and access, and improving quality.
The first of these priorities relates to Canada's health human resources. Health human resources planning enables the matching of available health care providers with the health care needs of the population. Projections of this nature allow decision-makers to plan appropriately for the education, deployment, and evaluation of health human resources to meet the needs of Canadians.
To do this effectively, we need a better system of tracking and deploying our health professionals. Thus, CNA recommends that the federal government lead the creation of a national unique identifier for all Canadian health professionals. A national unique identifier has been described as an “essential piece” of health human resource planning infrastructure. The Canadian Institute for Health Information's feasibility study showed that the implementation of a unique identifier for nine professions would incur a start-up cost of $17.3 million over three years and a subsequent annual operating cost of $5.2 million. This investment would provide governments and regional health authorities with the information they need to monitor trends influencing workforce stability, including the practice, status, distribution, and mobility of health care providers. This would be especially helpful in preparing for and responding to pandemics or the need for rapid deployment of health care professionals.
Our second recommendation addresses the need to bolster community-based health services, such as primary care, school health, ambulatory care, and home care to improve the health of our nation. Far too many Canadians are turning up in our emergency departments or are being hospitalized unnecessarily for health conditions that could and should be managed in the community. As such, CNA recommends that the federal government fund coordination across the national health agencies to advance community-based health services.
We know that chronic diseases are estimated to cost over $90 billion annually in treatment and lost productivity. We also know that chronic diseases, such as asthma, diabetes, heart failure, and hypertension, can be managed in the community. Interprofessional teams that include nurse practitioners, registered nurses, and clinical nurse specialists add value to the health care system by reducing the number of unnecessary and costly admissions and readmissions to the hospital.
For example, teams of mobile emergency nurses who respond to non-urgent calls from long-term care homes reduce the number of transfers to emergency departments. A recent study in Toronto demonstrated that these teams were able to provide the necessary care for 78% of the residents they visited, residents who would otherwise have been sent to emergency departments. The cost of these mobile visits is 21% less than the cost of having their needs addressed in emergency departments.
Greater implementation of these innovative, evidence-based models into practice across the system will result in better care, improved and timely access to the most appropriate health care providers, and will yield better health and lower costs across Canada's health care system. The federal government's leadership is paramount to achieving a healthy population, a productive workforce, and a vibrant economy.
I thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions. Merci.