Customer

Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are extensively trained advanced practice nurses, equipped with master's level or higher education in nursing complemented by integrated medical sciences. Functioning as primary care providers, NPs offer their expertise across a wide array of healthcare settings.

The Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of British Columbia (NNPBC), operating via its NP Provincial Initiatives Program, is committed to enhancing the quality of healthcare services delivered by NPs. This is achieved through a range of programs, engagements, coaching, and mentorship opportunities. These initiatives are designed to provide crucial support to NPs who operate as independent contractors throughout the Province of British Columbia.

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Situation

Primary Care Nurse Practitioners serve as crucial entry points to primary healthcare for residents of British Columbia, operating in various clinical settings across urban, rural, remote, and Indigenous health contexts.

The challenges identified were as follows:

1. The hierarchical and regulated nature of the NP profession posed difficulties in understanding the representation and distribution of NPs across different healthcare service providers in the province, including primary care clinics, divisions of family practice (DoFPs), and local primary care networks (PCNs).
2. Information regarding primary care access for Indigenous Nations was fragmented across multiple sources and did not adequately reflect the involvement of NPs as primary healthcare providers for these communities. Although it was evident that Indigenous Nations faced significant gaps in primary care access, pinpointing these gaps was essential for targeted interventions.
3. The regional leadership team within the NP Provincial Initiatives Program expressed a need for greater visibility into the panel of NPs they were tasked with supporting through various professional development opportunities. This visibility needed to be tailored to the specific dynamics of each health region.

In response to these challenges, our client engaged us to develop a visualization tool. This tool aimed to map the presence of NPs across NP-participating primary care clinics, DoFPs, and PCNs within the five health regions while also illustrating the level of healthcare services provided to Indigenous Nations throughout the province.

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Project Goals

Having previously collaborated with the NP-PIP team, we recognized an opportunity to streamline and consolidate the data into a single master list. This centralized database would serve as both the foundation for the visualization tool and as a comprehensive CRM system for NPs across the province.

Our overarching project objective was to develop an internal mapping tool that would fulfill the reporting requirements of executive leadership, administrative staff, and regional leadership teams. This tool aimed to facilitate coordination efforts in engaging with NPs and supporting their professional growth. Additionally, a key aspect of the project was to identify gaps in primary care access for Indigenous Nations. This would enable NP-PIP to pinpoint these discrepancies confidently and collaborate with internal stakeholders and the Ministry of Health to address them effectively.

The goals for this project were:

1. To streamline data collection and data update processes for the list of NPs served by NNPBC.
2. Build a reporting dashboard for internal users creating visibility into the geographical presence of NPs across the Province and their access points to the Indigenous Nations.
3. Create support documentation for this new dashboard

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Impact & Results

Technology used:

• Airtable - already being used by the client to manage data and workflows
• Glide - app builder
• Loom, ScribeHow - support documentation

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The dashboard is launched in May 2024.

• 500+ NPs put on a map and connected with:
  • 5 Health Regions
  • 206 Indigenous Nations
  • 162 Primary Care Clinics
  • 53 PCNs
  • 48 Divisions of Family Practice

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