Manitoba acquires staffing systems for $8 million

WINNIPEG – Manitoba is investing $8 million in hospital I.T. systems that will help manage workloads among clinicians and also predict patient volumes, to better match the supply of caregivers with demand.

Health minister Cameron Friesen (pictured) announced the investment at Health Sciences Centre. He said the resource optimization system software will forecast and compare the hospital’s schedule to manage the volume of patients.

It will replace eight different systems used across facilities now and allow St. Boniface Hospital to change over from a manual process.

“Over at St. Boniface Hospital, their system still involves managers using a combination of pen and paper and spreadsheets to manually put the schedules together,” Friesen said. “Microsoft Excel is a great tool, and many of us use it, but I think we can all agree it is not an efficient tool that can ensure that staff in a hospital is adequate.”

Krista Williams, the chief health officer of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said the investment will help hospitals plan ahead.

“When we know what to expect, when to expect more patients within our system, we can work more proactively instead of reactively, to put staff in place to better meet that demand,” she said.

The resource optimization system will be implemented in three phases, beginning at the Health Sciences Centre.

Later phases will include installation at St. Boniface and Grace hospitals, followed by Concordia, Seven Oaks and Victoria hospitals.