Internal travel nurses support OPOR rollout in first major deployment

Nova Scotia Health’s internal travel nurse team is taking on a major task supporting the rollout of the province’s new clinical information system.  

It will mark the first time the year-old program is deployed in Central Zone, an area that takes in Halifax, Eastern Shore and West Hants.  

The team, created to reduce reliance on costly external agency nurses and stabilize emergency departments, has been training at the Charles V. Keating Emergency and Trauma Centre at the QEII Health Sciences Centre. These 11 nurses will move into the province’s busiest emergency department to help maintain continuity of care as they and their colleagues become more familiar with the new system.  

The internal travel nurse team launched in April 2025 after a contractual agreement was reached between Nova Scotia Health and its union partners. Both sides wanted to curb the growing dependence on external travel nurses, a trend each side agreed had driven up costs and strained staff who were repeatedly asked to onboard new agency nurses.  

“It was impacting nurses,” said Jennifer MacDougall, a Nova Scotia Health director who leads a portfolio focused on supporting, educating and advancing healthcare professionals to achieve excellence in patient care. “That constant churn of new staff makes it hard to build team relationships and trust.”  

The internal travel nurse program was closely modelled on Manitoba’s program, with additional insights from Newfoundland and Labrador. The goal: create a flexible, mobile workforce of Nova Scotia Health employees who can support short-staffed emergency departments while receiving competitive compensation and the ability to travel within the province.  

Christine Hines, manager of the internal travel nurse team, said the model is already proving its worth. “Putting together this team has been very rewarding when you see their positive effect on the sites they are placed at.  We have received tremendous support from the sites, communities and current NSH staff. All these groups are helping us to rein in the expenses,” she said. “It just wasn’t sustainable as it was.”  

Hines oversees a team of 13 nurses with a wide range of experience. Their service time ranges from a 34-year veteran to those with four or five years in emergency care. Senior nurses have been helping to mentor junior site nurses and the team also supports staff at the sites they enter especially when they take on charge and leadership roles.  

The team has spent its first year in Northern Zone, encompassing Colchester-East Hants, Cumberland and Pictou. Some nurses will stay in that zone to avoid destabilizing services in Colchester and Cumberland counties, but most will head to Halifax for One Person, One Record (OPOR) training.  

Their presence will help the QEII Health Sciences Centre maintain patient flow while staff learn the new digital system. Once trained, the travel nurses will become a mobile group of CISskilled emergency nurses who can then support future rollouts in other zones.  

“When we move to another zone, we’ll have skilled emergency nurses who know the system,” MacDougall said. “They can be peer champions and at‑the‑elbow support.”  

The program has also become a recruitment tool. Nurses from the United States and from other provinces have applied, including Nova Scotians working as external travel nurses who want to return home. One recent hire brought a two-for-one benefit: a travel nurse joined the team, and his spouse accepted a permanent position at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish.  

The appeal is flexibility for nurses. Casual team members can work condensed schedules, travel elsewhere for short‑term contracts, then return to Nova Scotia Health without losing their place.  

“It’s a really neat opportunity,” MacDougall said. “You’re a Nova Scotia Health employee. We invest in you. We support your professional development.”  

Patients likely won’t notice the transition. Internal travel nurses wear the standard black and white uniform and they are familiar with Nova Scotia Health equipment, such as pumps, defibrillators and glucometers, in addition to organizational policies and procedures.  

“It will look like business as usual,” MacDougall said.  

Behind the scenes, she said, the internal travel nurse program is helping stabilize emergency departments, reduce costs and support one of the largest digital health transformations in the province’s history.  

“It’s a great strategy to recruit people to our province,” she said, “and it’s going to make a real impact.” 

Photo of a healthcare worker using a WOW (workstation on wheels) station.