đ§ Admin Work? Not My Problem
Your Weekly Dose of Health Insights â Because Your Health Isnât Just a Headline
Good morning, Other Siders!
Quick detour before we dive into wild BC recruitment campaigns and robots saving Alberta from paperwork purgatoryâŚ
This week, Iâve been thinking about the healthcare equivalent of âjust do the thing even if you donât feel like doing it.â You know that feeling when you're trying to fix 17 broken workflows, wrangle 6 stakeholders, and still remember what lunch is? Same. But what ifânot everythingâs a fire to put out? What if some of that chaos is just⌠healthcare being healthcare?
At The Other Side of Care, we donât promise rainbows. But we do help organizations like yours find clarity in the mess, whether itâs scaling automation like Alberta or making primary care actually feel, well, caring (looking at you, Ontario đ). We bring global wins you can use today, so stay tunedâthis weekâs lineup is a good one.
Letâs dive in đ
In todayâs edition:
BC Says âCome North!â
Ontario Gets Primary Care Right!
Hope Takes Flight
Case in Point: Alberta Health Services Automation
Dive in and enjoy the ride. đ
News that Impacts You!
BC Says âCome North!â đď¸
British Columbia just launched a targeted recruitment campaign in Washington, Oregon, and California, essentially saying "Hey American healthcare heroes, ditch the chaos and follow your hearts north!" The province is strategically advertising to doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals who are probably tired of insurance nightmares and looking for that sweet universal healthcare life. Example: A Seattle ICU nurse could swap rain forâwellâmore rain in Prince Rupert and bank a $20 k bonus.
What do you think would convince you to make the move north?
Ontario Gets Primary Care Right! đŻ
June 5th marked a historic day when Ontario passed the Primary Care Act â the first Canadian province to establish a framework for improving primary care systems. Based on the groundbreaking OurCare Standard (developed after consulting 10,000 Canadians), this legislation sets six patient-centered objectives and requires annual progress reports. Imagine finally having a family doctor who knows your name, your history, and can actually see you when you need them â that's the vision here. The Minister now has to report annually on progress, which means no more empty promises without accountability.
Are you ready to hold your province accountable for similar standards
Hope Takes Flight âď¸
June 6th was Hope Air Day, celebrating an organization that's basically the healthcare superhero for rural and remote Canadians. Hope Air provides free flights, accommodations, and travel support to low-income patients who need specialty care â coordinating over 45,000 travel arrangements annually across 650+ communities. Think about Maria from Whitehorse who needs cancer treatment in Vancouver but can't afford the $2,000 flight â Hope Air makes it happen, completely free. They even threw a live concert in Sault Ste. Marie with country artist Cory Marks because healthcare accessibility deserves a celebration!
How many of your patients could benefit from this kind of support?
đLet us know what you think in the comment section.
đľď¸ââď¸Case in Point
How Alberta Health Services Automated Away 200 Years of Work
Background & Problem: Alberta Health Services (AHS) operates as a healthcare behemoth - managing 100 hospitals across 700 buildings with 34,000 beds, serving a population through 100 different companies and coordinating 10,000 managers.
To put this in perspective: in just one year, AHS serves over 11.3 million meals, cleans 2.2 million square meters of floors, and launders 28.5 million sheets.
But behind these staggering numbers lay a critical problem. The organization was drowning in administrative burden. During the COVID-19 pandemic, AHS faced unprecedented pressure to rapidly expand their workforce while maintaining quality care. Their HR processes were manual, time-consuming, and frankly, unsustainable. Staff across nine departments were spending countless hours on repetitive tasks like data entry, scheduling, and onboarding - work that kept talented healthcare professionals away from patient care.
The Solution: Rather than hiring more administrative staff, AHS took a bold technological leap. They implemented intelligent automation powered by SS&C Blue Prism software, starting with HR processes during the pandemic crisis. Jesse Tutt, Program Director of Intelligent Automation, led the charge in developing robotic process automation (RPA) that could mimic human actions - mouse clicks, keystrokes, and data transfers - but do them 24/7 without breaks, errors, or complaints
The Outcome:
The results were nothing short of revolutionary:
The automations now handle everything from staff scheduling and Connect Care data loading to clinician onboarding and access management. What used to take healthcare workers hours of tedious data entry now happens automatically, freeing them to focus on what they do best - caring for patients.
How We Can Help: The AHS transformation didn't happen overnight - it required strategic planning, change management, and careful implementation. At The Other Side of Care, we specialize in helping healthcare organizations navigate exactly these types of digital transformations. Our team has the proven expertise in digital health strategy and operational transformation needed to identify automation opportunities, manage organizational change, and deliver sustainable impact.
Whether you're looking to streamline administrative processes, improve patient experience, or free up clinical staff for higher-value work, we can help you develop and implement solutions that work in the real world of Canadian healthcare.
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Tell Us What You Really Think! đ
How did we do this week, Other Siders? Did these stories spark ideas for your practice? Hit reply and let us know what healthcare challenges you're tackling â we might feature your insights in next week's edition!