Spotlight: Plan A Health Care Staffing Solutions
Social Entrepreneurs are driven to develop innovative solutions to today’s most present social issues by combining entrepreneurial skills with a passion for positive impact. With the increase of the aging population and limited access to public resources, seniors’ needs are real and access to basic health care is vital, especially in Northern Ontario.
Plan A Health Care Staffing Solutions Inc. is a Northern Ontario company, based in Sudbury, whose focus is to give Northern Ontario Long Term Care Facilities a temporary, yet high-quality back-up plan to staffing issues. This social enterprise aims to bring solutions to one of the region’s most pressing social issue, access to health care for seniors.
After learning about “The A Team” at a recent visit to NORCAT Innovation Mill, we wanted to know more about the work they do and share their amazing story. Below, Sheri Tomchick, founder and CEO of Plan A, shares the vision behind her company and why she is so passionate about the work they do.
Check out their story below:
Q: Please describe Plan A Health Care Staffing Solutions, Inc. and the motivation behind it.
A: Plan A Health Care Staffing Solutions is the largest health care staffing agency in the north. With an office team of four and a health care pool of over 200 RN’s, RPN’s and PSW’s, our focus is on staffing our local and neighboring long term care homes when they are faced with an immediate or short-term shortage. Our mission is to create a back-up plan that is compassionate, dependable and the logical choice for our Long Term Care homes. We are unrelenting in ensuring that our vulnerable population is cared for but equally focused on making certain that the people that look after them (RN’s, RPN’s and PSW’s) are cared for too.
The Plan A pool of health care providers is screened both personally and professionally to ensure they have the experience, confidence and attitude to lend their talent to our clients. With our in house created staffing software, StaffStat, our clients can request shifts for all three designations and can know within minutes that they are going to be covered. Our in-house processes ensure that our clients are accessing health care professionals who are qualified and ready to pick up where the homes regular staff leaves off.
Long term care is chronically short on staff, dealing with about 8–10 sick calls per day per home. The situation becomes volatile when there are not enough people in the building to provide care for the residents. Our focus is providing our clients with a solution that is both consistent and trouble free.
Our mission is to create a back-up plan that is compassionate, dependable and the logical choice for our Long Term Care homes. We are unrelenting in ensuring that our vulnerable population is cared for but equally focused on making certain that the people that look after them (RN’s, RPN’s and PSW’s) are cared for too.
Q: Would you consider yourself a social entrepreneur? Why?
A: I absolutely consider myself a social entrepreneur. My vision is 100% driven on solutions for health care homes and support for healthcare professionals. As a former RN in the hospital and a coordinator of a college level PSW program I learned from firsthand experience that staffing is one of the most pressing issues in our health care system. Our solutions are focused on people, both the residents and the people who take care of them. We are concentrating on answers, inspiring people to join our vision, learning how to implement our ideas, team building and leadership development, raising capital, networking, giving back, etc. It’s exciting, interesting, inspiring and educational and the roller-coaster ride of a life time. Going through the motions followed by being able to bring a real and tangible solution to our local and neighboring LTC’s is an incredible reward.
Q: Does this term ‘social entrepreneur’ resonate with you? What words might you connect with more?
A: The term ‘social entrepreneur’ does resonate with me. Some of the other words that I align myself with are responsibility, integrity, fairness, communication, vulnerability, clarity, visionary problem solver, partnerships, sense of community, fiscal responsibility, accountability, goals and being true to our vision.
4. Who do you hope to impact/reach through your social enterprise or social purpose business?
A: We hope to impact the lives of the people that live in Long Term Care and support the people that work there. Through ‘borrowing’ experienced staff from the acute care sector and in turn, ‘lending’ them to the LTC sector, we hope that the health care professionals on our pool can learn more about caring for the elderly. We hope that this leads to a better understanding of their specific needs when the elderly are then admitted to hospitals for a separate diagnosis. The bigger picture has me hoping to reach the management and supervisors and hopefully the health care system as a whole. Collectively we can do so much to keep our healthcare systems’ head above water as the silver tsunami hits. Some of these things are as simple as team building and empowering our staff. Other ideas include using technology to add efficiencies that are effective and add time and savings to the bottom line.
We hope that the health care professionals on our pool can learn more about caring for the elderly. We hope that this leads to a better understanding of their specific needs when the elderly are then admitted to hospitals for a separate diagnosis.
Q: Why? (ie. What social, environmental or economic issues do you seek to address through your business?
A: The social issue that we’re addressing is the increases in our aging population with the shortages of health care professionals, facilities and resources to care for them properly.
Q: What barriers/challenges have you encountered?
A: As the first of our kind in the North there is often resistance to what it is we are trying to do. I often get asked ‘are you for-profit’ which I find is somewhat taboo in a ‘non-profit’ world. I’ve switched the conversation to ‘for-purpose’ which helps people to understand why a company like mine is vitally important to our healthcare system. Our solution is particularly vital in the North, because we have our own unique challenges such as demographic, people shortages, an older population in general.
I often get asked ‘are you for-profit’ which I find is somewhat taboo in a ‘non-profit’ world. I’ve switched the conversation to ‘for-purpose’ which helps people to understand why a company like mine is vitally important to our healthcare system.
Q: How did you confront those challenges and barriers? What resources did you need? What resources do you need as you move forward?
A: We truly believe in what we are doing. We are focused, committed to a quality service and invested in making only the best solution available to our community. We have seen exponential growth in the past four years and we’ve been creative at accessing resources. We have partnerships with our local post secondary institutions to access nursing students, we’ve received funding from NORCAT programs and NOHFC, and we have had unlimited access to mentoring. All of these things have been very valuable and we plan to tap into those resources on a continual basis moving forward.
We truly believe in what we are doing. We are focused, committed to a quality service and invested in making only the best solution available to our community.
For more information about Plan A Health Care Staffing Solutions, contact Sheri Tomchick at 705-587-PLAN (7526) or theAteam@planahealthcarestaffing.ca, or visit their website.
Originally published at www.seethechange.ca.
