Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Canadians need patient-centred, effective, and sustainable health services. Individuals and their families want to access the services of their family doctors, nurse practitioners, public health nurses and other community workers smoothly and simply without excessive overlap and redundancy. This vision of health care services is called the integration of primary health care services around a primary care home (also known as a medical care home). The goal is for people to have easy access to the right service in the right place at the right time. In northern British Columbia, the Northern Health Authority is working towards integrating services around primary care homes. This approach to care will mean that family doctors, community services and public health nurses will work together in new ways. Their services will become more “integrated”. This research will study the experiences of public health nurses as they begin to work in this new model in three rural communities in northern British Columbia. The results of this research will provide new information about how public health nursing practice changes through this new way of working and how services can be changed to better meet the needs of rural people. The research will also inform health care policy and the delivery of primary care and public health services in rural and northern Canadian communities.