Vitalité, CCNB team up to tackle recruitment, labour shortages

Senior officials from health authority, college met to discuss future strategies

Published Feb 27, 2024 • Last updated Feb 28, 2024 • 4 minute read

Senior members of Vitalite Health Network and CCNB met together earlier this month to discuss collaboration on strategies for recruitment and filling labour shortages. submitted

Vitalité Health Network and Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick have joined forces in response to the labour shortages in the health sector.

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In a joint release on Tuesday, the two organizations said their senior management met earlier this month to discuss a partnership. They said their collaboration could make it easier for students to get employment by improving recruitment, training, and access to health internships.

Recruitment was one of the priorities discussed during the meeting, and aligning their international recruitment efforts to increase their effectiveness. Vitalité and CCNB said that could look like common strategies or joint attendance at job fairs. Another idea discussed is coordinated efforts at local recruitment in places like secondary schools.

Identifying future and current needs will make it possible to tailor recruitment to fill voids in both Vitalité and CCNB.

The two groups said initiatives and incentives could make possible to offer employment opportunities to people prior to their training, as well as developing internships within the health authority.

Dr. France Desrosiers, Vitalité’s president and CEO said their collaboration produce results, such as the micro-certificate in phlebotomy, which was rolled out quickly to meet Vitalité’s need for qualified staff in their blood test clinics.

“We believe that this collaboration in training and innovation will continue meeting the growing needs of our learners, Vitalité Health Network, and our communities,” she said. “For Vitalité Health Network, collaboration with postsecondary educational institutions is essential to coordinate our efforts and put our collective intelligence to work in developing the training that will produce the workers best able to meet our needs, both today and into the future.”

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Innovation and applied research were identified as another priority area. The health authority and CCNB said they are striving for “openness and creativity” to explore new practices, new tools and new training. For example, the approach could involve developing new professions within Vitalité, and creating the CCNB training required to support them.

Both groups said in the release they have agreed to pursue their discussions and collaborative work on their priority areas. Another meeting involving members of senior management of Vitalité and l’Université de Moncton will also take place within the coming months.

Brigitte Sonier-Ferguson Vitalité‘s senior vice-president of performance, university mission and strategies, said the two organizations have had a history of partnership.

“We face a lot of the same challenges so it made sense for us to sit down around a table and have some key discussions about how we can align,” she said. “For us as a health system it’s as important for us that CCNB can recruit students so they can be trained and then come work for us in the future.”

Some of the CCNB programs where students do internships within Vitalité include lab technicians, phlebotomists, office and administration, trades, licensed practical nurses, and patient support workers.

Vitalité has seen CCNB’s need for professors and at times health staff have taken on course loads or facilitated training for CCNB programs. The two groups have also worked together on training for dialysis technicians as an adapted LPN program that piloted their first cohort.

Working together on international recruitment could include Vitalité and CCNB aligning their schedules and strategies for recruiting, though recruitment for students and health staff can sometimes be different, said Sonier-Ferguson.

“It makes it a bit more attractive for students if they can see a possible employer also in the picture when trying to recruit them,” she said.

Sonier-Ferguson said one of the items discussed was how CCNB could lend their innovation and research skills on concepts like building algorithms for triaging for patients in future primary care models that involve a variety of health professionals.

“All these things that are coming very rapidly towards us that are going to help us transform our system for the future,” she said.

The two organizations have met twice, and Sonier-Ferguson said she looks forward to larger yearly meetings, as well as regular contact with CCNB throughout the year.

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Pierre Zundel, president and CEO of CCNB said in an interview that one of the challenges the college and Vitalité discussed was the lack of internship placements for students in Vitalité facilities because of the ongoing staffing shortages.

“If you barely have enough staff to provide critical care to patients it’s difficult to ask staff to spend part of their attention [on students.]”

One of the possible solutions they discussed was creating a simulation lab with high-tech mannequin patients to reduce the number of hours that needed to be spent in hospitals. The mannequins would also allow students to learn how to handle rare situations and procedures.

Zundel said the equipment and personnel for a simulation lab are costly, but if the college, Vitalité and Universite de Moncton worked together the cost of the purchases could be shared.

Housing is another challenge both for CCNB and Vitalité so Zundel said in the future there could be discussions about collaborating on acquiring residential space to house students and new hires for Vitalité.

When it comes to recruitment, Zundel said CCNB can assist Vitalité at recruiting events to assess the capabilities of candidates. If the candidates require further training, it could be offered through the college.

“Between the two of us we can do a better job of getting the people that are needed so our health system can meet the needs,” he said.

Zundel said CCNB will be looking closer at programs they offer and how they can transfer into the Vitalité network, such as IT, cybersecurity, and trades, in addition to their health-care related programs.

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