Integrating clinical education into Ontario's changing health care system /

The paper was developed with extensive consultations with resource groups from nursing and rehabilitation sciences programs, the Council of Ontario University Programs in Nursing (COUPN), the COUPN Undergraduate Coordinators (COUPN UG), the Ontario Council of University Programs in Rehabilitation Sciences (OCUPRS), the committee of the Academic Coordinators of Clinical Education/Directors of Clini [...] MOHLTC should consider taking over provincial oversight of HSPnet--including strategies for growth, cost recovery, use of data for provincial reporting and policy-making, and governance--in order to maximize the benefits of this system for clinical education and health care in the province, and align with HSPnet management practices in the rest of the country. [...] Page 10 of 46 2.1 Restructuring of the Health care System For the past two decades, governments have been making efforts to contain increases in the costs of the health care system, while shifting the system to adapt to changing patient demographics and needs. [...] Since nursing faculty accompany students in groups to the hospital, the smaller the size of the groups, the more groups that must be formed, the more clinical faculty that must be hired, and the more expensive the enterprise becomes for the university.13 3.1.3. [...] This phenomenon has been a result of hospital efforts to reduce staffing costs, in response to government cuts to hospitals.15 The overall cuts to nursing positions and the resulting increase in patient-to-RN ratio (each registered nurse being responsible for more patients) have decreased the number of RNs in hospitals,16 and consequently the number of preceptors available to students.