What we are using is based more on the needs of the patients, rather than going directly to the ratio. It means looking at the needs of the patients.
I know seniors' care is rising, and we've done a recent report on that. We need to plan for more resources by looking at different models and different categories of nurses. We have to do things differently. We can no longer use the same models that we have. We know things are not getting better and we have to use different services in the community so that individuals will not go to the emergency and will not bottleneck emergency services, so that those services that are needed are used for the patients who need them.
Seniors' care is an area where we're thinking of the population's needs and how to provide the resources they need. Also, rural and remote health care, as you suggested, is an area where we are concentrating our efforts and looking at ways to recruit nurses to move to those areas, as well as looking at ways to provide services in those areas using technology and using different models to enable nurses to work to full capacity. There are problems with some jurisdictional regulations and policies that create barriers.
Those are all solutions that are multipronged. It means having a global sense of the situation and of the needs of the population right now.