IEN-Co: Supporting the health and wellbeing of internationally educated nurses as they transition to practice in Canada: Developing a team and co-designing future work
Linda Sheiban Taucar, RN, M.Sc., director, Centre for Health Care Research & Innovation (CHCRI), Conestoga College; Catherine E. Tong, PhD, senior researcher, CHCRI, Conestoga College; Christiana Babatunde, student researcher, CHCRI, Conestoga College; Elena Neiterman, PhD, associate professor, University of Waterloo; Jacobi Elliott, PhD, scientist, Lawson Research Institute; and the Centre for Health Care Research & Innovation team at Conestoga College.
Internationally educated nurses (IENs) are a growing and important part of health care teams across the country. They also play a vital role in addressing our national health human resource (HHR) crisis. IENs at work, however, may experience stress, feelings of isolation and confusion, and discrimination at the hands of their patients, peers, and employers. This project brought together a team of researchers and IENs to co-design a research study that seeks to understand and actively support IENs’ health and well-being as they transition to practice in Canada.
We used a community-focused co-design design approach, meaning that we did a series of co-design events to work alongside IENs and the professionals (e.g. faculty, health care administrators, researchers) supporting them. We completed 13 in-depth discovery interviews with administrators and IENs from several provinces, and a final co-design session with 25 IENs, administrators and faculty.