With a new agreement now in place between Alberta Health Services (AHS) and Red Deer Polytechnic, the Myron Thompson Health Centre has become the first site to host a new approach toward benefiting not only nursing students and staff but also health care as a whole.
In a press statement issued Thursday, March 21 – AHS announced the understanding through which AHS nurses will have the option of temporarily taking on clinical instructor placements when Red Deer Polytechnic is unable to recruit a qualified instructor.
“This joint appointment fills RDP’s need for instructors while students are completing their placements and at the same time, enables AHS to preserve its valuable and experienced nurses,” reads part of the statement.
Adriana LaGrange, minister of Health and MLA for Red Deer North, said the collaboration between AHS and RDP is expected to make available additional instructors while enabling more nursing students from rural areas to learn in their home communities while more nurses graduate.
The Red Deer campus has created 192 more spaces in its nursing program through 2022-2025 as part of the provincial government’s investment in more seats for post-secondary programs throughout Alberta.
Sundre’s hospital became the first site to host the new agreement, which began this past September.
“Students in their third year of a four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at RDP have taken a three-month clinical placement in Sundre under the instruction of an AHS-registered nurse recruited by RDP,” reads a portion of the release.
“One nurse instructor is assigned per site to a group of students who are engaged in hands-on learning related to rural health care.”
Carolyn Trumper, AHS executive director of Integrated Quality Management, Professional Practice and Education, Planning and Performance and Clinical Information Systems, said deciding which rural health-care sites are able to accommodate nursing students’ clinical placements hinges on being able to provide a qualified instructor to guide them.
“We are grateful to our RDP partners for having worked with us to find an agreement of mutual benefit. This is truly a win-win situation for rural acute care sites, students, post-secondary and communities,” Trumper was quoted as saying.
Daphne Kennedy, associate dean of Red Deer Polytechnic’s School of Health and Wellness, was quoted as saying the agreement “reduces barriers for practicing registered nurses to instruct nursing students and prepare them for rewarding careers in health care.”
