Nova Scotia Health transformations wow national audience

Nova Scotia is emerging as a national model for healthcare modernization after researchers and policymakers at a national conference widely praised the province's bold approach to medicine.

Delegates at the recent Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR) conference in Ottawa routinely pointed to Nova Scotia as an innovative leader in workforce planning, care models and digital health delivery.

Local science experts returning from the event felt the national reception signals a shifting narrative for a provincial healthcare system historically appearing snarled by bureaucratic challenges and public scrutiny.

"Researchers, policymakers and health system folks from across the country routinely remarked how innovative, inspiring and fearless Nova Scotia is," said Sam Petrie, a health outcomes scientist with Nova Scotia Health. "Nova Scotia is increasingly becoming a health system that other Canadian provinces and systems are looking to for guidance and inspiration in their own work and transformation."

Petrie, who also serves as an adjunct professor in Dalhousie University’s Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, attended the conference alongside a delegation of presenters from Nova Scotia Health, IWK Health Centre, Dalhousie and provincial Department of Health and Wellness.

The annual CAHSPR conference, backed by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), is considered Canada's pre-eminent gathering for health policy experts. Acceptance into the program is highly competitive, requiring a rigorous peer-review process of research abstracts.

Petrie presented findings on YourHealthNS, the province’s mobile application that grants patients direct access to their personal health records. He also stepped in for a colleague to deliver a scheduled presentation on primary healthcare workforce planning, focusing on recruitment and retention strategies for nurse practitioners.

"At every session, including mine, people would say, 'Wow, this is really commendable what Nova Scotia is doing,'" Petrie said. "In the case of YourHealthNS, people were very excited about the fact that patients, regardless of where they are in the province, can access their health records."

Delegates expressed similar enthusiasm for how the province supports nurse practitioners within primary care networks, specifically praising the creative deployment of staff to combat burnout and attrition.

Armed with a PhD in health sciences and a post-doctoral fellowship from the University of Toronto, Petrie returned home to Halifax in 2024 to join Nova Scotia Health's implementation science team.

"This role is unique in that it really is driven by what the system needs," Petrie said. "I don’t necessarily pick my projects; they are assigned to me. The reports we generate have a direct impact on the decisions that get made."

As a health outcomes scientist, Petrie said his recent evaluations range from analyzing emergency department enhancement projects and digital apps to reviewing a specialized 3D-printing pilot project within the hospital network.

Nova Scotia Health is looking to better channel this scientific data into public-facing platforms, ensuring local patients understand the scope of the research happening in their own backyards.

"This conference was a really good reminder,” Petrie added, “that there is incredibly good work going on here, too."