CONTENTS
Standing Committee on Public Accounts
THIRTIETH
LEGISLATURE
of
the
Legislative Assembly of
Saskatchewan
STANDING
COMMITTEE ON
Hansard
Verbatim Report
No.
16 — Thursday, June 4, 2026
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Well good morning,
everyone. We’ll convene the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. My name is
Trent Wotherspoon. I’m the Chair of Public Accounts. I want to welcome everyone
that’s joined us here today.
I’ll start with introducing
the committee members that have joined us: Deputy Chair Thorsteinson, MLA
[Member of the Legislative Assembly] Keisig, MLA Gordon, MLA Pratchler; MLA
Crassweller is substituting for MLA Chan. And I think we might have another substitution
coming along here in a bit but not here at this point. We’ll introduce them
when they join us.
I’d like to welcome and
introduce our officials with the Provincial Comptroller’s office. I see a
member with their hand. I’m going to come back to you to see what’s up as soon
as I’m done introducing the comptroller and the auditor’s office.
So we have the Provincial
Comptroller, Brent Hebert, that’s here with us today, as well as Jane Borland,
assistant provincial comptroller. I’d of course like to welcome and introduce
our Provincial Auditor, Tara Clemett, and to welcome her officials that have
joined us here today and all those involved in the work. I know as we go she’ll
be introducing her officials as it pertains to each of the relevant chapters.
And I’ll come over to MLA
Gordon, who’s signalling that he has an intervention.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity here. I’d like to present a
motion to this committee, and a very important motion with respect to the
government’s plans for the coal refurbishment at SaskPower.
I think we can all agree that
on this committee, it is our job and it is our duty to ensure that government
is a good steward of public tax dollars, that the plans that the government has
initiated, you know, can survive scrutiny, that are above board, that there is
a level of transparency and accountability with the way that they shepherd
public funds. And that their plan for the coal refurbishment in the province
through SaskPower is done in an insightful way, is done in an effective way, is
done in an efficient way. And that the public can rest assured that those plans
and the costing for those plans is well based, that we can have confidence in
that decision and that going forward the people of the province have confidence
in SaskPower and all the ancillary fallout from that decision.
So I would ask to move the
following motion:
That the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts, pursuant to subsection 16(1) of The
Provincial Auditor Act, request that the Provincial Auditor perform a
special assignment investigation to examine the increase in projected costs of
the government’s coal refurbishment plan from 900 million to
$26 billion.
And I would also ask, Mr.
Chair, for a standing vote on that as well.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Just a point of
clarification. The term “standing vote,” would interpret that as a recorded
vote. Is that what you’re looking for? So I guess I’d look to . . .
I’d welcome as well, we have another committee member that’s joining us here:
MLA McLeod, who’s substituting for MLA Bromm here today. So welcome, MLA
McLeod.
We have a motion that’s been
moved by MLA Gordon. I’ll read that motion:
That the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts, pursuant to subsection . . .
of The Provincial Auditor Act, request that the Provincial Auditor
perform a special assignment investigation to examine the increase in projected
costs of the government’s coal refurbishment plan from 900 million to
$26 billion.
So my question is, is the
committee ready for the question? Or is there further debate? MLA Keisig.
Travis
Keisig: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d just like to put a few comments on the record. The
committee had no clue this motion was coming forward. This concern has been
debated wildly in the Legislative Assembly, and I do not believe it is relevant
to the purview of the committee’s work today. So I will not be supporting this
motion.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any other comments, or is
the committee ready . . . Or debate? Is the committee ready for the
question?
Some
Hon. Members: — Question.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Question. Is it the
pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Some
Hon. Members: — No.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. I hear a couple
“agreeds.” I hear some nos. And there’s been a recorded vote that’s been
requested. So I’d ask all those in favour . . . I’d remind folks too
that the Chair would vote in the event of a tie. But the protocol is, the
procedure otherwise is for the Chair not to vote.
All those in favour of the
motion, please raise your hand. Just because I saw a few different hands going
up around both sides there, I’ll just make sure I ask again. All those in
favour, please raise your hand. Okay. Two.
All those opposed to the
motion, please raise your hand. Looks like four to me, Clerk.
Those in favour of the
motion, two. Those opposed to the motion, four. I declare that the motion is
lost.
Saskatchewan Health Authority
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, folks. We’ve
introduced the comptrollers, the Provincial Auditor’s office. I’d like to
announce at this time our first agenda items and our focus here today, which
are going to be on the Saskatchewan Health Authority. I want to thank the
officials that have joined us here today and all those involved in the work
that’s going to be considered here today.
I’d invite at this point ADM
[assistant deputy minister] O’Neill, who’s seated at the middle of the table,
to introduce all the officials that have joined him here today. Refrain from
getting into the respective chapters at this point. I’ll turn it over to the
auditor for presentation then come back your way for comments at that time.
So, ADM O’Neill, thanks for
being here, and please introduce your officials.
Norman O’Neill:
— Thank you, and good morning to everybody. Just some quick opening remarks. So
I’ll just thank the Provincial Auditor of Saskatchewan, Tara Clemett, and her
team for joining us today. We acknowledge the important role that the
Provincial Auditor plays in providing independent oversight for the Ministry of
Health and our partner agencies.
We’re joined today by staff
from the Ministry of Health and the Saskatchewan Health Authority to discuss
progress on the previous auditor’s reports and to address any follow-up
questions. Myself, I am Assistant Deputy Minister Norm O’Neill from the Ministry
of Health. Joining me from the ministry today are James Turner, assistant
deputy minister; Chad Ryan, assistant deputy minister; David Matear, assistant
deputy minister; Ryan Dobson, director of operations and internal audit; and
Monifa Minott, manager of internal audit.
Additionally, from the
Saskatchewan Health Authority the representatives include Andrew Will, to my
left, who’s the chief executive officer; Julia Pemberton, to my right, who’s
the vice-president of integrated northern health; Derek Miller, chief operating
officer; Carla Male, vice-president of finance and chief financial officer; and
Mike Northcott, chief human resources officer.
The Ministry of Health and
the SHA [Saskatchewan Health Authority], along with our partners, value the
work of the auditor as I’ve noted, and we value the recommendations found in
these reports. Work is ongoing to strengthen programs, processes, and outcomes.
And we’ll build on today’s review and discussions. We remain focused on
strengthening accountability, improving patient safety, and ensuring
Saskatchewan residents receive high-quality care. We continue to put patients
first in everything we do.
The ministry and our health
system partners share the same objective as the Provincial Auditor, which is to
support continuous improvement and ensure effective stewardship of public
resources in delivering health services. We look forward to today’s discussion
and the opportunity to review these important reports. And that concludes my
comments and introductions.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, well thanks so much
for being here and for those remarks and your introductions. I’d like to thank
the folks as well that were involved in putting together the status update that
was supplied to the committee that focused on each of the recommendations. That
certainly allows committee members to focus their questions. And at this time
I’ll table that document, PAC 94‑30, Saskatchewan Health Authority:
Status update, dated June 4th, 2026.
I’m going to turn it over now
to our Provincial Auditor. She’ll introduce the officials that have joined her
here and then focus in on the first chapter for consideration and the new
recommendations that come from it. The first focus will be from the 2025 report
volume 1, chapter 6. And I’ll kick it over to Provincial Auditor Clemett.
Tara
Clemett: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair, committee members, and officials. With me
today is Mr. Jason Wandy, and he’s the deputy provincial auditor that is
responsible for the portfolio of work that does include the Saskatchewan Health
Authority. And behind him is Ms. Kim Lowe, and she would have been involved in
a number of audits that we’ll be discussing today. And she’s acting as our
liaison with the committee as well today.
Jason and I are going to
present the chapters for the Saskatchewan Health Authority in the order that
they do appear on the agenda. That will result in 10 separate presentations. We
will pause for the committee’s discussion and deliberation after each presentation.
There are two presentations that do include 11 recommendations that are new for
the committee’s consideration and eight presentations that are follow-up
audits, and they provide a status update on outstanding recommendations the
committee has already previously agreed to.
I do want to thank the CEO
[chief executive officer] of the Saskatchewan Health Authority and all his
officials for the co-operation that was extended to us during our work.
With that I’m going to start
as indicated with chapter 6 that is first on the agenda. Chapter 6 of our 2025
report volume 1 reports the results of our audit of the Saskatchewan Health
Authority’s processes to deliver opioid addiction treatment services for the 12‑month
period ended December 31st, 2024. We concluded the Authority had effective
processes other than the areas reflected in our eight recommendations.
In 2023, 341 people died from
opioid drug toxicity in Saskatchewan. Opioid use disorder and addiction is
where individuals find it hard to control the use of opioids. Opioid use
disorder can be managed by using medication combined with counselling and behaviour
therapies.
Opioid agonist therapy, also
referred to as OAT, is a medication-assisted treatment for people with opioid
use disorder to reduce their cravings for opioids and prevent withdrawal
symptoms. Additionally rapid access to addictions medicine, also referred to as
RAAM, services can provide quick access to care for those struggling with
opioid use disorder by connecting clients to appropriate community health care
providers for ongoing care and support.
[09:15]
At
the time of our audit, the Authority operated 13 OAT out-patient programs in 11 communities along with RAAM
out-patient clinics located in four communities. Additionally the Authority
operated 12 in-patient addiction treatment facilities across Saskatchewan where
it directly provided treatment services to clients.
We
made eight recommendations to strengthen the Authority’s treatment services,
and I’m now going to walk you through each of them.
On
page 79 we recommend the Saskatchewan Health Authority provide clear and easily
accessible information to the public about opioid addiction treatment services
available in the province.
The
Authority uses its website along with the Government of Saskatchewan’s website
to inform individuals about opioid use disorder and addiction treatment
services. We found these websites were difficult to navigate, which may result
in unnecessary complications for someone searching for where and how to get
help for opioid use disorder — for example, clinic location, operating hours.
Our
review of websites maintained in other jurisdictions like Alberta and BC
[British Columbia] found they included better information about different
treatment options, clinic details, helplines, and online appointment booking.
In
addition, while we found some out-patient clinic staff periodically met with
community-based organizations to increase the awareness of opioid addiction
treatment services available, we found that the Authority did not use formal
communications, like pamphlets or posters within shelters and emergency rooms,
to make individuals aware of available opioid addiction treatment services. A
lack of clear and easily accessible information about available opioid
addiction treatment options can prevent individuals and their families from
finding appropriate help and resources when needed.
On
page 81 we recommend the Saskatchewan Health Authority analyze the provincial
supply and demand for its opioid addiction treatment services.
The
Authority separates the operational responsibility for its opioid addiction
treatment services across the province between two units, and it does not have
a central IT [information technology] system tracking addictions treatment.
This limits the Authority’s ability to have aggregated and comparable data for
assessing supply and demand for the addiction treatment services it provides.
We
visited six addictions treatment facilities and found staff address
fluctuations in demand on an ad hoc basis by reallocating existing funding
within their budgets or communicating with the Authority’s management about the
needs for further resources like additional staff. As the Authority did not
analyze supply and demand for opioid addiction treatment services across the
province, we analyzed available data to identify circumstances that may warrant
further analysis by the Authority. We found it reasonable that the Authority
had varied opioid treatment services — so out-patient and in-patient — in
Saskatoon and Regina, as this is where most opioid overdose hospitalizations
and drug toxicity deaths do occur.
However
we found differences in prescriber availability within Regina and Saskatoon OAT
programs, highlighting a need for further analysis. Regina clients waited fewer
days to receive treatment in 2024, an average of 1.75 days, compared to
Saskatoon clients, who waited an average of 4.75 days. Lack of analysis of
supply and demand for opioid addiction treatment services increases the risk of
the Authority not having treatment available to clients where needed.
On
page 84 we recommend the Saskatchewan Health Authority implement standardized
approaches — so work standards and IT system — for its opioid addiction
treatment services across the province.
As
I mentioned, the Authority separates the operational responsibility for its
addiction treatment services across the province between two units, and it
doesn’t have a central IT system associated with addictions treatment.
We
also found each of the Authority’s out-patient opioid addiction treatment
facilities maintain their own work standards guiding the services that they
provide, like intake assessments and treatment plans. A review of the work
standards for three out-patient clinics we visited found one facility’s
standards aligned with good practice, but two of the facilities’ standards did
not include guidance about a client’s continuum of care, such as referrals to
other services, as expected.
We
also found inconsistencies in the requirements for assessing clients’
withdrawal symptoms. Authority management indicated that it does expect to
develop a provincial OAT program including work standards applying to all
facilities by 2028.
Without
provincial standards there’s an increased risk of the Authority providing
inconsistent treatment services to clients. Additionally one IT system for
delivering opioid addiction treatment services would enable the Authority to
have a complete picture of opioid addiction treatment services throughout the
province.
On
page 86 we recommend the Saskatchewan Health Authority consistently assess
opioid withdrawal symptoms before prescribing OAT medication to clients
receiving out-patient opioid addiction treatment services.
Out-patient
opioid addiction treatment services are guided by established guidelines. The
guidelines set out key assessments and tests health care staff must complete
before prescribing clients OAT medications, for example, methadone. Key
assessments include intake assessments such as medical and substance use
history, urine drug tests, and opioid withdrawal symptom assessments such as
assessing a client’s resting pulse rate or their irritability.
We
tested 30 client files and found staff completed intake assessments as well as
urine drug tests for all clients prior to the physicians prescribing OAT
medication. However we did not find evidence of staff providing opioid
withdrawal assessments for 16 clients. Not consistently performing and
documenting opioid withdrawal assessments limits the health care staff’s
ability to determine a client’s level of opioid dependence to help determine
the right time to start the client on medication.
On
page 87 we recommend the Saskatchewan Health Authority provide timely
out-patient opioid addiction treatment services, so the initial treatment and
follow-up to clients with opioid use disorder. When a staff at an out-patient
facility assesses a client as having an opioid use disorder, good practice
recommends the client have access to a physician or a nurse practitioner to be
prescribed OAT medication within a maximum of three days of the assessment.
Once clients receive a prescription for OAT medication, guidelines expect
health care staff to reassess the clients within three days of the first dose
of Suboxone, and at least once a week for the first 14 days of prescribing
methadone.
Our
testing of 30 client files found the average wait time to see a health care
professional for the initial OAT medication prescription was 3.5 days in 2024.
Two out-patient facilities have an average wait time of 4.0 and 4.7 days, which
is beyond the recommended good practice of three days.
Additionally
we found health care staff did not reassess 11 clients we tested within
prescribed time frames. For example, staff provided one client with a six-month
supply of methadone but had not scheduled follow-up appointments during this
time to assess the effectiveness of the treatment.
Not
having OAT medication within three days delays the ability for a client to
start the recovery process, and long waits increase the risk of a client not
returning to a clinic. Not reassessing clients after the first dose, as
required by the guidelines, increases the risk that the client’s response to
the medication is not monitored and treatment is not adjusted as necessary.
On
page 88 we recommend the Saskatchewan Health Authority consistently complete
discharge transfer plans for clients receiving in-patient opioid addiction
treatment services. Guidelines set out a minimum standard of care for
in-patient addiction treatment facilities to ensure service quality is
consistently delivered across the province. We tested files for six in-patient
clients with opioid use disorder and found the Authority maintains appropriate
documentation of the requirements set out in the guidelines such as client
history, medical examinations, establishment of recovery goals, except for
discharge or transfer planning.
One
in-patient facility did not maintain evidence of discharge or transfer planning
for two of three client files that we tested from that facility. Discharge or
transfer planning encourages a collaborative approach between the client, the
in-patient facility case manager, and the community case manager to support a
client’s successful long-term recovery.
On
page 89 we recommend the Saskatchewan Health Authority offer opioid agonist
therapy medications to clients with opioid use disorder while receiving social
detox services. Good practice recommends individuals with opioid use disorder
not be offered withdrawal management detox alone. Research shows clients going
through detox without transitioning to an OAT program may experience increased
risks of relapse, lower rates of retention in treatment, and higher rates of
illness or death.
We
tested six clients with opioid use disorder who attended an in-patient
treatment facility for social detox, and found four were not receiving OAT
medication while in social detox. While these clients received medical
assessments prior to admission into the facility, we found that facility staff
did not offer OAT medication as an option for these clients. Not providing OAT
medications to clients with opioid use disorder while receiving detox services
increases the risk of relapse, illness, or death.
On
page 92 we recommend the Saskatchewan Health Authority consistently track and
analyze and report key performance information related to delivering opioid
addiction treatment services in the province. The Authority’s out-patient and
in-patient facilities track various ad hoc information about addiction
treatment services, but staff track information inconsistently between
facilities. We found each facility uses the information collected for its own
internal purposes. Information is not reported to senior management, and the
Authority doesn’t use it to assess performance of its opioid addiction
treatment services across the province, such as whether services are meeting
client demand.
We also found the Authority
doesn’t track and analyze or report other key information to senior management
related to the delivery of opioid addiction treatment services in the province.
Our chapter includes a number of potential key performance indicators related
to OAT programs that the Authority may want to consider implementing, such as
the number of individuals entering the health system with opioid use disorder
and the number of clients receiving OAT each month or for the first time.
Without consistently tracking, analyzing, and reporting key information, the
Authority is unable to sufficiently analyze trends and assess whether its
opioid addiction treatment services meet clients’ needs and are having impact.
I will now pause for the
committee’s consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you, Auditor.
Certainly is an incredibly important focus with your work in the chapter here
and the recommendations before us. These are new recommendations, so I’ll turn
it over to ADM O’Neill to provide some brief remarks on those recommendations.
Of course we’ve received the status update as well. And then we’ll open up for
questions.
Norman O’Neill:
— So thank you. So regarding the recommendation for the SHA to provide clear
and easily accessible information to the public, the SHA has updated its
public-facing website listing opioid agonist therapy, or OAT, clinics across
the province. This enhances clarity and consistency by providing up-to-date
details such as locations, hours, contact information, and referral processes.
The Ministry of Health project team is reviewing and updating existing web
content on opioid addiction treatment and addiction supports. Where appropriate
the government websites will direct users to SHA resources to ensure people
access the most accurate and current service information.
The SHA conducted a
provincial review of the OAT clinic materials and created a standardized
pamphlet for use across the province. This includes clear information on
services, referrals, care teams, and contact details. Additional patient
resources — handouts, posters, FAQs — have also been published internally for
use across OAT; rapid access to addiction medicine, or RAAM; and virtual access
to addiction medicine, or VAAM, services.
Surrounding the
recommendation for the SHA to analyze provincial supply and demand for its
opioid addiction treatment services, the SHA has completed a province-wide
current-state mapping of opioid agonist therapy services in May 2024 through
the provincial OAT project team.
[09:30]
The current-state mapping
assessed client volumes, service distribution, prescriber availability, and
program capacity and was used to inform initial site selection for the VAAM
program. The analysis supported alignment of organizational priorities and informed
early resource planning while also identifying underserved communities as
opportunities for future phased expansion.
As part of the ongoing
efforts to strengthen addiction services and better support clients, the
implementation of VAAM is planned for communities that do not have access to a
local clinic or an OAT prescriber in their community. VAAM currently provides service
to over 20 communities and surrounding areas. SHA continues to work with the
Ministry of Health through joint mental health and addictions planning
processes to implement, to align funding with identified needs and service
priorities.
With regards to the third
recommendation, for the SHA to implement standardized approaches for its opioid
addiction treatment services, the SHA has identified barriers to accessing
opioid addiction treatment through program reviews, client surveys, and staff
feedback and has taken reasonable actions within its control to address those
barriers. Efforts include locating services near shelters and transit,
partnering with community organizations, and expanding virtual care. The VAAM
program is being developed to improve access for remote and underserved
populations.
Services are currently
delivered across multiple units and IT systems, limiting consistency and data
comparability. The SHA is exploring the integration of existing OAT clinics
into a provincial IT system and working towards standardized service delivery
models.
The provincial OAT project
team is working with SHA clinical standards to assess existing practices and
develop provincial work standards aligned with the College of Physicians and
Surgeons of Saskatchewan guidelines. The guidelines will include intake, assessments,
treatment planning, referrals, and documentation.
SHA plans to support
implementation of provincial standards through structured training, orientation
materials, and ongoing education, including foundational training developed for
the virtual access to addictions medicine program. SHA is working with eHealth
and the Ministry of Health to explore options for improved data standardization
and future system integration.
Regarding the recommendation
for the SHA to consistently assess opioid withdrawal symptoms before
prescribing OAT medication, the SHA out-patient opioid addiction treatment
services follow multidisciplinary care models and are guided by provincial and
professional standards, including the College of Physicians and Surgeons of
Saskatchewan opioid agonist therapy standards and guidelines.
The SHA has initiated a
provincial scan and survey to understand current use of opioid withdrawal
assessment tools. The opioid agonist therapy prescriber advisory committee, or
OATPAC, has been consulted in the review of best practices. The recommendations
have been taken into consideration in determining how to best implement and
provide recommendations on the most appropriate standardized opioid withdrawal
assessment tools and clinical application.
The SHA is incorporating
opioid withdrawal assessment training into provincial OAT training and
orientation materials being developed by the provincial OAT project team. The
SHA will strengthen monitoring processes, including periodic review of client
files, to support consistent completion and documentation of opioid withdrawal
assessments prior to prescribing. The SHA will develop processes to address
situations where assessments are missed, including follow-up and corrective
actions to reduce clinical risk.
With regards to
recommendation no. 5, which is for the SHA to provide timely out-patient
opioid addiction treatment services, the SHA has established and communicated
to operational teams a provincial maximum wait time target of three days for
initial access to prescriber following assessment for opioid use disorder. The
SHA has allocated seven full-time equivalent clinical support positions to
address high client volumes, staffing pressures, with an additional 3.5 FTEs
[full-time equivalent] being allocated to further support service capacity.
The SHA is working with the
Ministry of Health to optimize prescriber availability in high-demand
communities, including Saskatoon and Regina, and the VAAM program to expand
prescriber access and reduce wait times, particularly for underserved and
remote communities.
The SHA has identified key
performance indicators for opioid addiction treatment services, including wait
times for initial and follow-up care, to be piloted in a clinical setting this
year and expanded province-wide in the 2027‑28 fiscal year. Monitoring
and reporting processes are being strengthened with regular reporting to senior
management to support accountability and timely corrective action.
Concerning the recommendation
for the SHA to consistently complete discharge/transfer plans for clients
receiving in-patient opioid addiction treatment services, we believe this is
fully implemented now. The SHA in-patient addictions treatment services follow
Saskatchewan alcohol and drug services program guidelines, with an identified
need to improve consistency in discharge and transfer planning.
The SHA has developed and
implemented a provincial work standard for discharge and transfer planning for
recovery treatment centres and in-patient programs aligned with the
Saskatchewan alcohol and drug services program requirements. The work standard
includes expectations for evaluation of client progress, aftercare planning,
and coordination with community-based care managers prior to discharge.
The SHA has implemented a
provincial file audit work standard to support consistent completion and
documentation of discharge and transfer plans. Updated staff orientation and
training checklists have been implemented to ensure staff consistently apply discharge
and transfer planning requirements.
Related to recommendation
no. 7, which is for the SHA to offer OAT medications to clients with
opioid use disorder, the SHA is revising detox service protocols to ensure
opioid agonist therapy is routinely offered to eligible clients with opioid use
disorder as part of in-patient social detox care. Integration of opioid agonist
therapy into detox and recovery treatment settings is being supported through
the provincial opioid agonist therapy priority project.
The SHA has provided
information resources to recovery treatment centres and detox centres to ensure
clear understanding of pathways and how to access VAAM for clients in their
care. The SHA is strengthening staff education with in-services to support consistent
understanding of the role of opioid agonist therapy, client engagement, and
appropriate clinical application.
With regards to the final
recommendation, which is for the SHA to consistently track, analyze, and report
key performance information, the SHA is establishing key performance
indicators, or KPIs, to measure service effectiveness. This will include client
volumes, wait times, retention rates, and client satisfaction.
The provincial OAT project
team has started identifying metrics and developing standardized methods for
collection and analysis. Data collection processes are being standardized
across all out-patient and in-patient opioid addiction treatment facilities to
ensure consistent tracking of client numbers, wait times, service utilization,
and outcomes. This will allow leaders to monitor trends, identify gaps, and
assess whether services are meeting demands.
Wait time reporting is being
enhanced to improve accuracy and reliability. Reports will use calendar days,
include both new and returning clients, and adhere to evidence-based reporting
standards, including Canadian Institute for Health Information definitions. A
province-wide review of current wait time reporting practices has now been
completed and is being analyzed to identify gaps and inconsistency.
Client engagement and service
quality measurement will be strengthened throughout development of regular
client satisfaction surveys. These surveys will assess client experiences,
quality of care, and recovery progress. Feasibility for public reporting of
selected KPIs is also being considered to increase transparency and
accountability. VAAM has integrated key performance indicators and is
collaborating with digital health and brick-and-mortar clinics to extract and
integrate electronic medical records data for consistent reporting across the
province.
And that concludes my
comments.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you very much for
the report. Thanks as well for the many actions that have been taken by
officials with respect to these recommendations. But I’ll open it up at this
point to committee members that may have questions. MLA Pratchler.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Thank you, Chair, and welcome. When I look at recommendation 1, I was
wondering, what other avenues does SHA use to provide clear and easily
accessible information to the public who are suffering from addictions, don’t
have access to a computer system, or would have a reading level — or be it a
physical situation — where reading in that kind of tool may not be the best for
transmitting that information? Basically do you have
workers on the front line that can help them do some kind of sorting and make
some informed decisions as best they can to access prevention or treatment
strategies?
Julia
Pemberton:
— Hi. Good morning. Thank you so much for the invitation to be here today. I’m
excited to be able to comment on the work we’re doing to support the auditor’s
report. My name is Julia Pemberton, and I’m the vice-president for integrated
north, and the executive sponsor for mental health and addictions for the
province.
Great
question, MLA. Thank you very much for it. And there’s a few different ways of
navigation that the Saskatchewan Health Authority supports connecting people to
care beyond the pamphlets, the websites.
So
we have three different places where people can interact with care. We have our
wellness buses, which are out in community meeting people where they are at,
which has an addictions counsellor, a nurse, and a nurse practitioner often on
board who can support connection to care. We also have our outreach teams in
several of our urban communities that meet people on the street or where
they’re at in shelters. And then within our ER [emergency room] system we also
have mental health workers and ER nurses who are able to connect to addictions
services for care.
Joan Pratchler: — Would that be the same in
our urban centres?
Julia
Pemberton:
— Yes.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. I’m noticing on here
the timeline for implementation is next year. What’s not implemented yet that
takes another year to get implemented?
Julia
Pemberton:
— For recommendation no. 1?
Joan Pratchler: — Yes.
Julia
Pemberton:
— Thank you for the question. One of the things that we have done with our
website, right, is introduce our new search-by-service function in May of this
year. And so we’re building upon that to expand our website to have interactive
capabilities as well as youth-focused content. So that will be achieved this
year; as well as we’re working on the expansion of VAAM.
So
we’ve started in 20 communities, but we’re working towards a provincial
expansion. And with that expansion there’ll be a series of education materials
that will go to those communities once VAAM is available to them.
[09:45]
Joan
Pratchler: — Thank you. A standardized
OAT program was going to happen by 2028. Would you be able to describe some of
the milestones that need to be achieved as part of that standardization? And
what’s the timeline for those milestones as well?
Julia Pemberton: — Hi. Thank you. So there
are a few different parts of our phased expansion between this year and next.
So this year we plan to develop and implement provincial work standards that
align with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan guidance. As
well we’re going to start, and continue into 2028, advancing the establishment
of our community of practice to support consistent application of standards and
shared learning across the province.
The IT program, as you can
imagine, is a little bit more complex. So it’s going to continue into 2028, and
we will advance standardized data and IT processes to improve consistency,
reporting, and decision making. And then by 2028 we will implement that provincial
oversight mechanism to support consistent service delivery and resource
alignment.
Joan
Pratchler: — I’m looking at
recommendation no. 2. It appeared in the auditor’s report in 2025, which
means that the situation was occurring well before that. And now it’s 2026 and
it’s not ready to get rolling till 2027. We have an opioid crisis and have had
it for a very long time.
I’m also wondering too, just
with those dates in mind and looking at the future, what are your key
successful tenets, you know, for prevention of opioid and drug toxicity and the
programming that could prevent having to have such a massive recovery model?
Julia
Pemberton:
— Thank you again for the question. So the SHA does acknowledge that historical
data limitations, including decentralized service delivery models and multiple
information systems, have constrained the ability to conduct comprehensive
provincial-level analysis.
And
to strengthen data-driven planning, the SHA is planning additional analysis to
better understand factors influencing wait times, including client demand,
prescriber availability, clinical hours, and service models across communities.
A survey and environmental scan are being planned to identify contributors to
wait time variation between high-demand communities, including Saskatoon and
Regina. And we have invested seven full-time equivalent staff in
brick-and-mortar clinics to better understand opioid agonist therapy resources,
and there’s another 3.5 FTE initiated this year.
Joan Pratchler: — And so could you just
identify what your tenets of your prevention programming is? Is that it?
Julia
Pemberton:
— Thanks. One of the key tenets for prevention is appropriate opioid
stewardship. So we’re working with the College of Physicians and Surgeons on
appropriate management of opioid prescription.
Joan Pratchler: — And that leads to my next
question. So would you be able to identify the key — I’ll call it tenets; I’ll
think of a synonym in about five minutes — that have been suggested by the
College of Physicians and Surgeons in addressing opioid addictions treatment
but also prevention?
Julia
Pemberton:
— Thank you for the question. And so we work to align our opioid stewardship
program with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. So I would just point you
to our opioid stewardship program website that outlines the key tenets of that
program.
Joan Pratchler: — Yes, and it’s been clear
that there has been some maybe not close alignment with what some of the
standard practices are. Anyway, so just flagging that.
So
I’ve been on Public Accounts Committee for the last year and a half, and it
seems consistently that whenever SHA comes up, that there’s always challenges
with the IT system. And it seems to be a real need to be able to have accurate
data to be able to pivot on some things that really have to be pivoted on
quickly. There are some systemic things, granted. But there are some things,
especially with people dying left and right in opioid addiction, that perhaps
if we had data snappy like that, we might be able to address it better, and we
wouldn’t have to see these sad stories on the news.
And
I don’t know if you could help me understand what you’re doing to encourage
eHealth or any other IT department to, you know, crank up the speed on some of
these kind of programming and some of these kind of internal things that must
be the root causes for not getting an IT system. And I don’t want to go through
the list because that wouldn’t be kind, but it’s been documented and flagged
for years. And we know in health care, we know in education, we know that
unless we have that data in a timely manner, it usually is a waste of money,
waste of time, and a sad, sad story about people hurting and dying.
Julia Pemberton:
— Thank you. So local IT systems were developed, as you know, over time in the
former health regions, and they’re often integrated with local primary and
acute care resources which do allow for care coordination across the service
continuum locally. And through the guidance of the provincial mental health and
addiction services leadership, the SHA is exploring how to better integrate
existing OAT clinics to utilize the provincial mental health and addictions
information system, or MHAIS, while maintaining core functionality provided
with local EMRs, or electronic medical records.
[10:00]
So one of the things we have
done is develop the MHAIS system, which is a dedicated IT system to mental
health and addictions. And that system is available to all SHA acute care
facilities and in-patient facilities in mental health and addictions. And we’re
working to roll that system out with our recovery treatment centre partners and
will be completed by 2028.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Have parameters been set in for the rigour of evaluating it?
Julia Pemberton:
— The evaluation will be part of the built-in key performance indicators for
the MHAIS system.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So are those ongoing, or are they going to be at the end of 2028 in March?
Julia Pemberton:
— Ongoing.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Ongoing. Okay, thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. There’s a lot of discussion of virtual care to address existing
barriers, but the auditor rightly pointed out that virtual care developed new
barriers. So I’m just wondering if there’s any plan to expand mobile or home
services? I guess Medavie has developed a few home detox programs to their
community paramedicine programs such as in Moose Jaw and Saskatoon. But they’re
very limited.
Julia Pemberton:
— Thanks, MLA, for the question. And yes, you are correct. We have started with
those two communities, but ongoing discussions to expand that service are
currently under way.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Do you have a timeline for when you expect that rollout of that expansion? Like
a plan for that expansion, and what your plans look like at this point?
Julia Pemberton:
— It’s part of the 500‑spaces initiative that will be completed by 2028.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Okay. How in your view has the closure of Prairie Harm, though, changed this
data? Can you tell us the wait times for Saskatoon since Prairie Harm closed,
and can you provide that information today?
Julia Pemberton:
— Thanks for your question. So with the closure of the Prairie Harm services,
we have been really closely engaged with the community-based organizations, and
we’ve made sure that there is no gaps in the continuity of care. We do report
our wait times quarterly, so we don’t have them here today.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Would you be able to provide that to the committee in a reasonable amount of
time, reasonable time frame? How long would that take to provide the committee?
Julia Pemberton:
— The end of quarter 2 is the end of June, and we’ll be evaluating that data in
July.
Hugh
Gordon: —
So 30 days’ time? Would that be . . . Sixty days’ time? Thank you
very much. We’ll ask for that then. Thank you. We’ll have you table that.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — And in the previous
quarter, you’re saying the previous quarter would have been reported out,
you’re saying then.
Julia Pemberton:
— The closure of Prairie Harm Reduction was at the end of quarter 1, so we need
a full quarter to understand if wait times have been impacted.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. What are you doing to inform the public of inaccessible services
such as treatment facilities, no available beds, or closed sites such as
Prairie Harm Reduction? And are you making that information available offline
as well as online?
Julia Pemberton:
— Thanks for the question. So as reported earlier, our search-by-service which
was launched in May 2025 outlines all of the services that are available to the
public. And in terms of the Prairie Harm Reduction, we don’t directly fund that
service. So we wouldn’t comment on their services, but our teams that are
connected locally are well aware.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Okay. I think this all comes back to, you know, how you communicate what
service is available in an effective way to the public or people who are
looking for addictions treatment, right? And I know MLA Pratchler had asked a
question previously about what about individuals that have limited access to
the internet — or perhaps have physical or mental limitations with respect to
getting information online — and how you are going about trying to provide that
information in more of a hard-copy format, correct? Like a nondigital
transmission of that information to them.
Julia Pemberton:
— So in response to your question, we do have several different modes of access
for information. So we do support the idea that no door is the wrong door. And
so as mentioned before, our search-by-service on the website, we did have
patient family partners engaged in creating that service to make sure it does
meet people’s needs for clarity.
We also continue to have our
outreach teams, our ER navigation teams, our wellness bus teams locally, who
are very aware of the services that are available in their home communities and
happy to meet people where they’re at. And then across the province we have 811
which is just a phone call service that people can access that will have a very
clear line of sight into what services are available and how to navigate people
to those services.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Pratchler.
Julia Pemberton:
— Finally — sorry, just one point I forgot to add — and then finally this year,
as stated previously, we are doing client satisfaction surveys across the OAT
portfolio which will inform if we’re meeting those needs on clarity and access
and readability.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Pratchler.
Joan
Pratchler: —
I’d like to talk a little bit about the OAT program, or O-A-T. What is the
current average wait time for an OAT medication prescription and how many cases
exceed, you know, that three-day maximum?
Julia Pemberton:
— Provincially? Or are you looking at a specific area?
Joan
Pratchler: —
Well that would take forever if we did specific areas. But are they following
the practices of doing it within three days? If not, why not?
[10:15]
Julia Pemberton:
— Thank you. I was just checking my latest data. So we have data up until March
2026, and across Saskatoon, Prince Albert detox and Prince Albert urban,
Kamsack, and Regina, our average is meeting the three-day expectation. We have
implemented though VAAM, which is . . . The goal of VAAM, virtual
access to addiction medicine, is same-day access. So we’re even wanting to make
sure we’re exceeding that three-day expectation, and with one phone call you’ll
be directly connected and be able to have a same-day start for your OAT therapy
with the VAAM. And that’s the success we’re seeing in those 20 communities.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So those are the main ones that you looked at. Do you have any consistent
outliers? And if you do, how do you address that for, you know, maybe if they
are outliers consistently?
Julia Pemberton:
— So we do continue to monitor key performance indicators. As we stated
previously, we’ve done a lot of work to enhance those KPIs this year, and wait
times are one of them. So we continue to monitor that quarterly and make
investments in the high-need sites that need it to reduce those wait times,
including the seven FTE last year that was invested and another 3.5 FTE
invested this year in brick-and-mortar clinics at the front line in those
sites.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So when we look at . . . you know, urban would be obviously, you
know, higher populated. What are sort of the metrics that we’re using in rural,
and do they have the same kind of three-day real-time hallmark standard, I
guess, of that? So what I’m seeing here — and I guess my question’s a little
bit all over the map here — urban looks like managing quite well. There doesn’t
appear to be any outliers. But what about rural?
Julia Pemberton:
— Great question. So with rural, that’s actually where we’re seeing the best
benefit of the virtual access to addiction medicine program in those 20
communities. And how we identified those communities was through that
provincial scan to identify communities that had high wait times, had no local
access to the OAT program. And we were able to prioritize those communities for
the virtual access to addiction medicine so that they have same-day access.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Gold star. Thank you. Let’s talk discharge planning. So you know, treatment is
one thing, but that it continues on and is part of that process of ongoing
. . . People are recovering alcoholics for their entire life.
Let’s talk about discharge
planning and what kind of tenacity and continuity is helping clients be able to
be successful after treatment/moving into recovery, which is for life. How frequently
are patients receiving discharge plan? And secondly, how is that being
monitored for follow-up for what we know is best practice, as recovery is
lifetime?
Julia Pemberton:
— So the SHA contracts and service agreements with our community-based
organizations reinforce the expectation for wraparound and holistic supports,
including coordination with community recovery teams, peer supports, and SHA
mental health and addictions services. These actions are intended to strengthen
transitions from in-patient treatment to community-based services, reduce the
risk of relapse, and support sustained recovery as we’ve adopted a
recovery-oriented system of care model for the province.
And as part of our 500‑space
initiative in partnership with the Ministry of Health, we do include
post-treatment spaces in that new initiative. So we continue to add net new
transitional spaces to the province to help people transition to maintain their
recovery. And we have work standard audits in place now since the audit to make
sure that we’re in 100 per cent compliance with our discharge planning.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So do I hear you say 100 per cent of clients have a discharge plan?
Julia Pemberton:
— And we have a work standard to audit that, to ensure.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And what would be the criteria involved in that in terms of connections to
community supports afterwards, in terms of how many clients might relapse and
have to re-access services? What would be the criteria in that evaluation of
discharge planning indicators?
Julia Pemberton:
— So in the discharge planning document it does make sure that we connect to
multiple points of care. Each client’s discharge plan will be different and
adaptable to their needs, but each plan does make sure we connect to those
supports.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Thank you. How many different programs are currently being used across clinics?
And does VAAM track the different programs? Or how does that work? Does there
need to be consistency? Is there consistency? And how is that evaluated?
Because my guess is that, you know, a whole bunch of different programs, you
know, across the board, they’d be different from clinic to clinic.
Julia Pemberton:
— What kind of programs are you referring to?
Joan Pratchler: — The
programs that they would go out to access in the community as follow-up after
their discharge plan. So they have a discharge plan; they’re asked to go check
in with person X or program X. Is that followed up as well once they go
through? And maybe it is, and maybe you’ve already answered that.
Julia Pemberton:
— So part of the discharge planning process is to make sure that we are
referring and connecting clients to care. The number of services that each
client needs is going to vary based on the individual client, so we make sure
that we provide that warm hand-off over to those services.
We also are, as I said
earlier, engaging in an evaluation. And so whether those services are followed
up on and how many people are connecting to those services is something we can
consider for that evaluation.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Which brings me to the next question. Being able to measure treatment outcomes
is really important. How is SHA assured that these programs are effective and
that there is a measuring tool that’s going to do that? Or is there a measuring
tool that measures the effectiveness of the treatment?
[10:30]
Julia Pemberton:
— So I’ll start with what information the SHA uses at the senior management
level to evaluate performance of our opioid services across the province. So we
currently review quarterly VAAM key performance indicator reporting, which
includes number of visits, number of unique clients, location, wait times,
same-day starts, referrals, transitions to community, and other key indicators.
The SHA is developing standardized definitions and data collection methods,
especially for wait times, to scale a consistent KPI approach across all OAT
clinics provincially.
We’re also developing a
client experience and outcome survey to implement provincially this year
alongside the above-mentioned KPIs to determine the effectiveness of OAT
programming in the province. This is going to work alongside the full expansion
of our mental health and addiction information system, which will provide that
fuller provincial picture when that’s fully implemented by the end of 2028.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. Can you tell me the percentage of clients that remain in treatment after
30 days, 90 days, and a year?
Julia Pemberton:
— So thank you for the question. We don’t currently track that right now. And
we recognize that OAT therapy is individual, and individuals can have a
different length of treatment, and some of those treatments can last more than
one year.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Absolutely. So my next question was going to be about the cost per successful
treatment, but I mean we can’t see into the future. This program that you’ve
initiated, it began when? I forget.
Julia Pemberton:
— VAAM?
Joan
Pratchler: —
Yeah.
Julia Pemberton:
— December 2024.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay, so it’s quite new.
Julia Pemberton:
— Very.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So right now would you have a ballpark of the cost? Even if you projected it
for a year. Like you’d know it up to now. What would be the cost for the VAAM
program yearly or what you know now?
Julia
Pemberton: — So the budget for the
VAAM program for this fiscal year is 3.6 million. We would need a full
year of implementation to understand on a per-patient cost.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And VAAM is only one part of the programming or the supports that are provided.
That’s just the virtual part. What would be the budgetary impact of the whole
treatment — so that is more than just the virtual; that’s the supports — per
client? How would we be able to access that amount of what it costs per person
to enter the system, get supports as best they can?
And I know it could be years
before someone truly goes through. But what would be the yearly cost of
somebody going through a program? If they receive treatment and they’re fine
and they’ve really had a successful recovery within that year, how much is it
costing to do that? Does that make sense?
Julia
Pemberton: — So as you can appreciate,
that’s probably a very difficult question to answer because every treatment
journey for a client is highly variable. So it’s not something we could answer
at this time.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Well and that’s it, and I don’t know if you’re planning on looking at it.
Because we know the exact costs it would be of a hip replacement, knee
replacement. And are there going to be outliers? Yeah. And there’s probably a
standard that we can land on — somebody landed on — for hip replacements, for
knees, for a variety of surgery. Is that something that we’re looking at, to
get some kind of costing on what it is per treatment to go through these
facilities?
And how much must we budget
for? When we know person X is beginning treatment, the basic level of care is
going to cost this much. If they go beyond six months, it’s going to cost this
much. So what processes are you putting in place? I mean this is a new kind of
. . . It shouldn’t be a new kind of medicine. It is. But how can we
quantify that to do proper budgeting and then of course evaluation on value for
funding for that?
Julia Pemberton:
— So I appreciate the question. And as I said before, a patient journey is
highly unique. It is more unique than a hip surgery, and we’re still in the
early stages of developing the VAAM program.
I will also say that with the
mental health action plan that is being implemented between now and 2028, the
system has a variety of changes that are coming to provide different supports.
So once the system stabilizes, I think we could take that under advisement.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Thank you. And that’s the last question I have. Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Listen, good exchange
there, folks. Looking to see if there’s any other questions. I see MLA Keisig.
Travis Keisig: — Thank
you, Mr. Chair. I just really wanted to compliment the auditor and the SHA team
for the very limited use of acronyms. It’s very important that we use the
entire words. There’s Saskatchewan people watching these deliberations. And
just a thank you to the team for doing really good work. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair
Wotherspoon: —
It’s a reasonable point, hey, because sometimes the acronyms are so common in
the respective disciplines or ministries or work. But you’re right, to the
average public who cares deeply about these matters, a lot of the acronyms can
sometimes, you know, cloud that conversation. So a reasonable point there, Keisig, and thanks for making it.
Not
seeing any further questions, again thanks to all those that have been engaged
in this substantive work for the actions that have been taken and for the
actions that have been committed to seeing these through to implementation.
I’d
welcome a motion at this point to concur and note progress with recommendations
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8. And yeah, I’ll take that one and note progress. And
Deputy Chair Thorsteinson moves. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, that’s carried. And
I’d welcome a motion to concur and note compliance with respect to
recommendation no. 6. Moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson as well. All agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair Wotherspoon: — That’s carried also. I’ll turn it
back over to the Provincial Auditor. Of course that last chapter was a brand
new chapter, first time it was considered before us. So you know, a fairly
substantive set of questions and consideration at the table. These other ones
have been considered at this table before, so they’re follow-up audits,
follow-up consideration. I’ll turn it over to the Provincial Auditor for the
2025 report volume 1 and to focus on chapter 12.
Jason Wandy:
— Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Saskatchewan Health Authority is responsible for
constructing, renovating, altering, maintaining, and managing its health care
facilities. There are over 50 health care facilities located in Saskatoon and
surrounding areas, serving over 360,000 Saskatchewan residents in more than 100
communities.
Chapter 12 of our 2025 report
volume 1 reports the results of our second follow-up audit of management’s
actions on the eight remaining recommendations we originally made in 2019
regarding the Authority’s processes to maintain health care facilities located
in Saskatoon and surrounding areas. By November 2024 the Authority implemented
four recommendations and continued to work on addressing the remaining four
recommendations.
First I’ll touch on the
improvements the Authority made. The Authority implemented a maintenance IT
system in 2023 to help control the accuracy of maintenance data and develop
standardized preventative maintenance activities for key health care facilities
and components.
[10:45]
It also worked with the
Ministry of SaskBuilds and Procurement to assess its facility conditions and
established a formal service objective to help determine potential facilities
or components at risk and those in immediate need of maintenance. In 2024, 50
out of the 66 facilities in Saskatoon and surrounding area were assessed as
good or fair condition, meaning 16 facilities were in poor condition.
The Authority also revised
its capital planning strategy to confirm capital project funding aligns with
established priorities, and our testing found appropriate rationale for capital
project prioritization and funding requests.
Now I will cover the four
recommendations that remain outstanding. The Authority partially implemented
the recommendation on page 147, where we recommended the Saskatchewan Health
Authority complete preventative maintenance on its key health care facilities
and components located in the city of Saskatoon and surrounding areas within
expected time frames.
In April 2023 the Authority
established a work standard setting out expected time frames for completing
maintenance of facilities and component assets, based on a combination of a
priority rating and maintenance frequency. However, when testing maintenance
work orders in November 2024, we found certain staff were not aware that the
work standard existed and therefore were not following the expectations
outlined in the work standard.
Our testing of 30
preventative maintenance work orders found staff completed only eight work
orders within the expected time frames; that is, 73 per cent not completed
timely. Lateness ranged from 4 to 96 days late. Our testing also found the
maintenance IT system allows staff to generate multiple work orders for the
same maintenance procedure, creating the risk of staff duplicating work.
Not completing preventative
maintenance in a timely manner increases the risk that an asset may fail and
cause harm to residents, patients, visitors, or staff. This could also lead to
increased future repair costs.
The Authority partially
implemented the two recommendations on page 149, where we recommended that the
Saskatchewan Health Authority have written guidance for classifying and
prioritizing requests for demand maintenance on key health care facilities and components
located in the city of Saskatoon and surrounding areas, and the Authority
complete demand maintenance in line with priority rankings for key health care
facilities and components located in the city of Saskatoon and surrounding
areas.
In October 2023 the Authority
developed a work standard to prioritize demand maintenance requests in the
maintenance IT system by assigning an associated risk and desired time frame to
complete each request. The system automatically assigns all orders as major
risk, and thus all requests are given emergency priority. Previously no
expectations to adjust this rating existed.
Starting in August 2024,
Authority staff started to adjust priority ratings for maintenance requests to
align with the work standard. Our testing of 30 untimely demand maintenance
requests completed found 10, or 33 per cent, have priority ratings set per the
established work standard. Most requests continue to be ranked at the highest
emergency priority level, which can lead to prioritizing completion of less
critical requests before other more significant requests.
We also analyzed over 6,300
demand maintenance work orders closed between August and October 2024 and found
staff completed 85 per cent of work orders within the expected response time
frames. Most work orders not completed timely were classified as major risk.
When demand maintenance requests are not appropriately prioritized, there is
increased risk personnel do not first complete priority maintenance of assets
critical for the delivery of health care services. Not completing timely demand
maintenance in order of actual priority increases the risk that key assets may
remain unrepaired longer than expected.
The Authority partially
implemented our recommendation on page 151, where we recommended the
Saskatchewan Health Authority use its planned maintenance activities as an
input to setting its Saskatoon-area maintenance budget. We found the Authority
continues to establish its maintenance budgets based on historical figures. We
found the maintenance IT system includes several capabilities to assist the
Authority in understanding costs associated with planned maintenance
activities. For example, the system can capture data on age, life expectancy,
useful life, warranty and replacement value costs for all equipment. Not using
planned maintenance activities to set budgets increase the risk of
insufficiently funding all required maintenance. This can lead to the Authority
not completing maintenance at appropriate times and deferring maintenance.
I will now pause for the
committee’s consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thanks so much for
the focuses, presentation, the follow-up work on this front. As a note, these
have all been considered of course before us in the past year, full agreement
by the committee on each recommendation. Thanks for detailing the actions on
the status update where implementation has occurred or what actions are
required still to ensure implementation in those timelines. Any comments or
quick words before we open up for questions?
Norman
O’Neill: — Yeah, I’ll just preface my comments on recommendations 4
through 7 as the others are considered implemented. So starting at
recommendation 4, which is for the SHA to complete preventative maintenance on
its key health care facilities and components. The SHA has developed a building
operations maintenance program in supporting work standards. These standards
will help guide preventative maintenance activities, including defined
procedures and expected timelines.
The SHA implemented a
computerized maintenance management system to support scheduling, tracking, and
reporting of preventative maintenance activities, including standardized
frequencies and timelines for maintenance tasks. The SHA continues to advance the
completion and refinement of remaining maintenance programs and work standards
to further strengthen consistency and support full alignment with expected
preventative maintenance time frames. A tracking and escalation process is in
place within the computerized maintenance management system to monitor
maintenance performance and support timely completion of preventative
maintenance activities.
Regarding the recommendation
for the SHA to have written guidance for classifying and prioritizing requests
for demand maintenance on key health care facilities, this is considered fully
implemented by the SHA. The SHA has established a demand maintenance
prioritization work standard within the computerized maintenance management
system, providing guidance on assigning risk ratings, expected response, and
completion time frames for maintenance requests.
A centralized intake process
has been implemented where demand maintenance requests for Saskatoon-area
facilities are routed through a call centre and assigned priority ratings using
standardized approaches. The prioritization process defines risk levels and
associated service expectations. Further refinement of guidance and controls is
ongoing to support consistent application of priority ratings across all users
and scenarios.
With regards to the
recommendation for the SHA to complete demand maintenance in line with priority
rankings for key health care facilities, the SHA implemented monitoring and
reporting processes within the computerized maintenance management system. This
will track demand maintenance performance against established priority levels
and service expectations. Demand maintenance work orders for Saskatoon-area
facilities are centrally routed and prioritized, supporting alignment between
assigned priority levels and expected response and completion time frames.
Key performance indicator
reporting is in the testing phase to ensure appropriateness and quality of
data. Our reporting and escalation framework is being developed to support
follow-up on delays and variances from expected timelines with ongoing refinement
to strengthen consistent use and effectiveness of escalation practices. This is
in the design phase, with a team testing current options.
Management continues to work
with operational staff to implement alignment between assigned priority levels
and actual completion timelines supporting more consistent execution of demand
maintenance activities based on risk.
For the final recommendation
I’ll touch on, which is for the SHA to use its planned maintenance activities
as an input, the SHA developed a risk-based maintenance planning approach for
key health care facilities and components in Saskatoon and surrounding areas.
This is to support prioritization of maintenance needs and inform annual budget
discussions.
The SHA continues to work
with the Ministry of Health to strengthen capital and maintenance planning
processes, including aligning maintenance priorities with funding requests. The
computerized maintenance management system has been implemented to capture
detailed data on assets, including condition, life cycle, and maintenance
requirements, which support more informed budgeting. While the computerized
maintenance management system has the capability to support forecasting of
planned maintenance activities and associated cost, its use as a primary input
into the maintenance budgeting process is still being advanced.
The SHA is progressing data
validation, standardization of equipment information, and development of
reporting capabilities within the computerized maintenance management system to
support future integration of planned maintenance activities into the budgeting
processes.
And with that, I’ll conclude
my comments.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thanks for the comments.
Thanks for the actions that are reflected there. And I’ll open up to committee
members that may have questions. MLA Pratchler.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Thank you. And thank you for that summary. Can you tell me when was the most
recent FCI [facility condition index] assessment completed for all the
facilities in the province?
Derek Miller:
— Good morning. I’m Derek Miller. I’m the chief operating officer with the SHA,
and happy to be here today to support response to questions.
So the last facility
condition index inspection occurred in 2025, and we’re now on a rotation where
every year a quarter or one of the geographical areas in the province between
North, rural, Regina, and Saskatoon will be inspected, so that every four years
we would expect a facility to have an updated FCI assessment.
And I’ll also add that as we
perform maintenance activities — replace a roof, a boiler — we provide that to
SaskBuilds and Procurement into the system so that that is accounted for in
terms of the FCI rating. And I just want to note that the tool, the FCI
assessment, is operated by SaskBuilds and Procurement, and it supports
consistency in terms of health facilities with other assets that are owned by
the government.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So SaskBuilds would provide you that report, and that’s how you would
determine, you know, the needs and responses to those assessments. Is that
correct?
Derek Miller:
— Yeah, we have access to the system that SaskBuilds and Procurement uses, so
we’re able to look at a facility basis to understand what the assessment is
telling us. And then we use that information in order to inform our budget
planning process for identification of projects for the budget cycle.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay, thank you. That sounds awfully . . . compared to what happens
in education, that you have the facility condition index and then it’s usually,
you know, rated in, you know, good, fair, excellent, that kind of thing. Could
you furnish that report of the facility index and how many are in the different
categories to the committee for all the facilities in the province to date.
[11:00]
Derek Miller:
— Okay. The way the facility condition index assesses and assigns a condition
is in four categories: good, fair, poor, and very poor.
I’ll say that from the 2025
FCI condition reports, our average was in the “good” category. And I’ll just go
through the number of facilities. So there’s 311 total facilities, and that
includes facilities where clinical services are provided as well as other
facilities that may be support, like a parkade, for example.
So in the “good” category
there were 126 facilities, which is 40.5 per cent. In the “fair” category, 71
facilities or 22.8 per cent. In the “poor” category, 109 facilities or 35 per
cent. And in the “very poor” category, five facilities or 1.6 per cent.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Would you be able to provide the committee with the itemized list of the
facilities and their ratings?
Norman O’Neill:
— I’ll answer it. So we can’t. We’ll have to follow up with SaskBuilds and
Procurement to get the itemized list, but we could do that within the next 30
days if that works.
Joan
Pratchler: —
That would be perfect. Is that the discussion with SaskBuilds, or that will be
the time I get the paper in my hand?
Norman O’Neill:
— We’ll have it to the committee, or however tabling typically works, within 30
days.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Yeah, thanks so much. And
just to confirm through the Chair here that we really appreciate that
undertaking to get that information to us within 30 days is excellent, and that
can be supplied through the Clerk. And they’ll extend to you what that process
looks like, although I think you’re familiar. So thank you very much.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Might I ask just specifically about Saskatoon’s facilities. What was the
average FCI for Saskatoon and the area . . . What was their level of
condition for that . . . I’ll say Saskatoon region; let’s just call
it that.
Derek Miller:
— I don’t have the breakdown for Saskatoon, but it would be included in the
report that . . . [inaudible].
Joan
Pratchler: —
Maybe it would be in that list that we . . .
Derek Miller:
— Yeah.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay, yeah. So what would be done for a cost-benefit analysis for preventative
maintenance versus repairs? And are you able to identify what preventative
maintenance saves in a dollar amount?
Derek Miller:
— I want to just acknowledge the importance of preventative maintenance for any
kind of asset buildings, very important for making sure we get full value out
of the life cycle of an asset. Also want to acknowledge, especially in our
environment with delivery of health services, that the operation and function
of our buildings and the equipment in them is very important for the ongoing
provision of clinical services to the public.
I would acknowledge that
break-fix happens like through the course of the year, and we’re responsive to
that. But we do focus on preventative maintenance. In terms of your specific
question around the cost of a preventive maintenance program versus repairs, we
don’t have that type of information to be able to share.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. So with this new CMMS [computerized maintenance management system]
system, what kind of reports is it able to produce?
Derek Miller:
— The computerized maintenance management system is a key enabler for us in
terms of how we manage our maintenance program within the Saskatchewan Health
Authority. It is our repository for all of our assets, and it’s where we
capture service requests that may come in from users out within our facilities,
or of things that might be broken.
It’s also where we manage our
preventative maintenance program and identify what needs to be checked or
monitored or whatever the task might be required for specific preventative
maintenance. So a very important tool for us and it allows us to provide oversight
of how we are performing.
And the Provincial Auditor
noted, for example, our responsiveness to demand maintenance. We prioritize
those based on risk, and then are we actually addressing the requests within
those timelines. So we’re able to, from a management perspective, provide oversight
in terms of are we meeting the required timelines for that as well as for
preventative maintenance.
It allows us to plan our
maintenance based on what’s coming up. We’re able to look ahead this month,
this week, what is coming up for preventative maintenance, and then assign
resources to be able to do that within our teams, but then also from an oversight
perspective, monitor how was our . . . is our team meeting the
maintenance needs within a given facility.
So there’s a number of
different types of reports that managers would be using in order to manage the
business, but also reports that are available to our leadership in order to
provide oversight, and how are we achieving the targets in terms of responsiveness
to our maintenance demands or preventative maintenance.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So it appears that there is a summary report provided to leadership. Is that
quarterly or yearly generated?
Derek Miller:
— Depending on the level of leadership, certainly the director of the
maintenance program within each area, or within Saskatoon in this case, would
be getting regular updates and have access to the information from CMMS to
manage the program. Some of the reports would be shared on a frequent basis
through the management structure.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And so they would eventually be furnished to the board.
Derek Miller:
— We’re not currently reporting . . . We have a number of key
performance indicators that we provide to our board. The maintenance
responsiveness, the type that would come out of the computerized maintenance
management system, we’re not currently reporting on any of those to the board.
But then certainly within the leadership team there is visibility on and
oversight of the maintenance program.
Joan Pratchler: — So are
they reported publicly in any way?
Derek Miller:
— We’re not currently reporting publicly on the measures out of the
computerized maintenance management system.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And is that an intention that that will be happening?
Derek Miller:
— As I mentioned, currently we’re not pulling information from the computerized
maintenance management system to report publicly. And we see this system as an operational
management system for us to be able to manage and deliver our program. I will
point out though that we do provide information on our capital program, capital
expenditures, and projects as part of our annual report that the Saskatchewan
Health Authority provides.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And in that capital report, is there . . . And I haven’t seen that.
Is there mention of key maintenance projects that need to happen because
they’re an emergent nature of any type? Or is it just new builds?
[11:15]
Derek Miller:
— The Saskatchewan Health Authority annual report, as I mentioned, includes our
capital plan, and it does identify our capital maintenance program expenditures
for the year within that. It’s where we would capture roof replacements, boiler
systems, nurse call systems — all the various building types of projects. But
we don’t provide a granular list of those; there’s over 300 facilities within
the SHA. But it would pull from all of those projects across the province into
that update on capital expenditures.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So where would someone in rural Saskatchewan be able to find out if their
hospital or their health care facility needs repair, on the list, and is
expected to get some, you know, mitigation for whatever concern they have? I
guess that’s why I’m asking, where is it publicly available so that people know
where their facilities rate and what they need to do to help support their
facilities being maintained?
Derek Miller:
— Thanks for the question. There’s a few different avenues that a member of the
public could engage in conversation or learn more about maintenance that might
be happening within our facilities. One is we have site leaders identified
across all of our sites. And site leaders are aware and participate in planning
for their facilities and is a point of contact for the public to be able to ask
questions and learn more about what’s happening within their local health
facility.
Also we have a number of
health foundations across the province that support different facilities.
That’s another means for the public to engage in and learn about what are the
needs of a specific health facility, what projects might be on the horizon, and
how they could potentially be interested in supporting that.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So if I understand correctly, internally you have the CMMS. Externally would be
these last few that you just mentioned for wanting to find out what the, you
know, facility condition is. Is that correct?
Derek Miller:
— Correct.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. Are there any high or urgent priority projects related to hygiene or
sanitation in Saskatoon facilities or their parking lots? Heat, air
conditioning, elevators in the Saskatoon facilities that are, you know,
emergent or urgently needing help?
Norman O’Neill:
— So I think we’re going to try and use the phone-a-friend option, and if it’s
okay with you we’ll . . . We do have various breakdowns of categories
like you’ve mentioned. So I just want to confirm, the four that you had noted
were HVAC [heating, ventilating, and air conditioning], parking lot,
sanitation, and hygiene?
Joan
Pratchler: —
Yes. Did you say elevators?
Norman O’Neill:
— No.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. There you go.
Norman O’Neill:
— But we’ll confirm that that’s the other one.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So hygiene, sanitation, parking lots, HVAC, and elevators.
Norman O’Neill:
— So we don’t have that right at this moment. We’ll try and get it so that we
can read it into the record after lunch if that works.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Sounds good to me. Thank you. That’s all the questions I have. Maybe Hugh has a
few more.
Chair
Wotherspoon: —
Any other questions on this chapter from committee members? Not seeing any, I’d
welcome a motion to conclude consideration of chapter 12. Moved by Deputy Chair
Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. We’re
going to move right along and turn it back over to the Provincial Auditor to
focus on chapter 13.
Jason Wandy:
— Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Saskatchewan Health Authority purchases goods and
services to support the delivery of health services each year. The Authority
directly purchased approximately $123 million in goods and services
between July 2024 and January 2025.
Chapter 13 of our 2025 report
volume 1 reports the results of our first follow-up audit of management’s
actions on eight recommendations we originally made in 2022 regarding the
Authority’s processes to purchase goods and services over $5,000. By February
2025 the Authority implemented seven of the eight recommendations.
The Authority appropriately
documented rationale when making single and sole-source purchases, including
when using credit cards to purchase goods and services, to show best value
sought when making purchases. It authorized the initiation of purchases and
written contracts for goods and services in accordance with its delegation of
signing authority.
It consistently evaluated
potential suppliers and obtained conflict-of-interest declarations from tender
subcommittee members when tendering for goods and services to help demonstrate
fair treatment of suppliers. It also communicated with suppliers about award
decisions for public tenders, which helps convey fairness and transparency in
the Authority’s purchasing process.
The Authority did not
implement the recommendation on page 161 where we recommended the Saskatchewan
Health Authority establish a formal process to assess and track supplier
performance.
The Authority does not
formally assess whether suppliers performed to a satisfactory level, such as
timelines met or acceptable quality of work after the conclusion of a contract
or after its receipt of goods and services. Management indicated the Authority
was developing a formal process to assess and track supplier performance which
it expected by March 2026. Without a consistent process to assess and track
supplier performance, there’s increased risk of the Authority using unqualified
or inappropriate suppliers in the future.
I will now pause for the
committee’s consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thanks so much for
the important follow-up on this front. Thanks to Health for providing the
update with the implementation that’s been highlighted. Any brief remarks, ADM
O’Neill, before we open it up?
Norman O’Neill:
— I’ll just limit it to recommendation no. 8 as the others are considered
implemented. With regards to recommendation no. 8, the auditor just noted
that our timeline was March 31st, 2026. So we also considered that implemented
at this point in time.
The SHA does conduct supplier
performance monitoring with a range of established practices including
participation in vendor performance reviews led by 3sHealth [Health Shared
Services Saskatchewan] for selected high value and critical contracts. This includes
operational feedback from clinical and support areas on supplier performance
related to service quality, delivery performance, and product availability.
Supplier performance
information is also collected through operational reporting mechanisms
including tracking of supply issues such as back orders, service disruptions,
and other concerns identified by end-users. This information supports ongoing
discussions with suppliers and informs internal contract management activities.
The SHA has developed a
vendor performance complaint platform with impact rating and tracker standard
dashboard reporting in AIMS [administrative information management system] and
a performance survey for project completion. These practices provide meaningful
input into supplier performance assessment and support informed contract
management decisions across the organization.
Thus concludes my comments.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you very much for
the update there, the actions that have been taken. And I’d open it up to
members if there’s any questions on this chapter.
Joan Pratchler: — When we
speak about services, are we talking for facility maintenance or does it
include other kind of services in health care provision?
[11:30]
Carla Male:
— Thank you for the question. My name is Carla Male. I’m the VP
[vice-president] finance and chief financial officer, and purchasing of goods
and services is a part of my portfolio. And so I’m glad to be here to assist in
the questions. And the very short answer is it’s both.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Would you be able to tell me what are the procurement policies regarding
awarding of contract notifications?
Norman O’Neill:
— Sorry, can you reiterate the question or repeat the question?
Joan
Pratchler: —
So when you put out an RFP [request for proposal] for service X, what are the
policies about letting people know who won the awards or who the contract was
awarded to? Sorry, that didn’t even come out right but . . .
[inaudible interjection] . . . Okay, good.
Carla Male:
— Thank you very much for the question. We do notify both successful and
unsuccessful proponents, or people that have made a bid on our RFPs, what their
status is, once everything has been concluded.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And do any of those go through SaskBuilds, or it’s just through the SHA for
that process?
Carla Male:
— Thank you for the question again. It’s both. It’s either SHA or 3sHealth
depending on who owns the contract.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. So I have a question regarding travel nursing companies engaged by SHA,
you know, for the past while. Would you be able to tell us the top five
companies and roughly how much were paid out to each?
Norman O’Neill:
— So we don’t have that information in front of us. We can commit to tabling it
within 30 days. We’ll get the top five up to the end of the fiscal year, so
March 31st, 2026, if that meets your needs.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — And just thanks, ADM
O’Neill, for undertaking to get that information to the committee. Same
process; the Clerk will lay out how to supply that to the committee. But thank
you.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And could you also add the top 10 out-of-province care providers?
Norman O’Neill:
— [Inaudible] . . . first. Just to follow up with your question,
we’re just seeking a bit of clarification, maybe an example of what you mean.
So we’re not quite sure what you’re looking for.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So if a client needs to go to Alberta for services, who’s that person or that
company that provides out-of-province care for the various . . . I
mean, that’s why I’m saying 10, because you’ve got a whole bunch of health care
provision outside of the province. We want to know who’s providing them. And
it’s more for patient care. I’m not talking about equipment and things like
that.
Norman O’Neill:
— We’ll just see what we’ve got.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay, thank you.
Ingrid Kirby:
— Good morning. Ingrid Kirby, assistant deputy minister with the Ministry of
Health. So your question on out-of-province providers, typically that is funded
by the Ministry of Health and not the Saskatchewan Health Authority. So if a
patient goes out of province — say to Edmonton — it’s covered through
reciprocal billing. It would be billed from Alberta to Saskatchewan, and we
would pay for it through the Ministry of Health.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So you wouldn’t be able to delineate the name of the service provider in that
case?
Ingrid Kirby:
— It would be Alberta Health Services.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Oh, Alberta Health Services.
Ingrid Kirby:
— Yeah, the ministry only covers if it’s a publicly funded facility, unless we
have other arrangements in place.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. SHA relies on pre-approved vendors on a regular basis or from time
to time, I understand. I was wondering if you could tell me which pre-approved
vendors you rely on, and what the process is for a vendor being pre-approved.
Andrew Will:
— Sorry. Pressed the button. Andrew Will, CEO of the Saskatchewan Health
Authority. Thanks for the question. So I wouldn’t say it’s a small component of
our procurement. That would be a request for qualifications. It’s usually more
service related, where we post publicly an opportunity . . .
competitive process for someone to provide their qualifications and services
provided.
And then that would result in
a list of pre-approved vendors that we would select based on what the
particular needs at the time are. But goods and services are more requests for
proposals and procurement processes that select particular vendors to deliver a
product.
Hugh
Gordon: —
The second part to that question was like, what’s the process for becoming a
pre-approved vendor? Like why do you have them? How do they get selected?
What’s the rationale?
Andrew Will:
— Yeah, and I appreciate that question. Maybe I wasn’t just clear enough on
that. So as I mentioned, really where that process would be used is more in
terms of a service that the SHA might have a need for a particular company to
provide consulting kinds of services. And those would be sometimes procured
through the SHA, sometimes through 3sHealth as well.
And those are always publicly
transparent in terms of posting those on SaskTenders and other means, so that
people can then be aware of what our requirements are and submit their proposal
for consideration, evaluation, and ultimately being awarded pre-approved
status.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. Maybe a question, a follow-up question for the Provincial Auditor.
That was something that your office looked into as well, pre-approved vendors
and the processes for approving them and managing them?
Tara
Clemett: —
Correct. So in terms of the follow-up here, like we’re satisfied with all the
procurement processes that the Saskatchewan Health Authority has in place in
terms of the way things are being posted, the length of time, who’s approving
the purchases, the transparency, and all the recording of everything and such.
So the only recommendation outstanding, they’ve since addressed with the
supplier: basically evaluations.
Hugh
Gordon: —
I just want another follow-up here. Are potential suppliers evaluated on a
case-by-case basis, or is it sort of an ongoing . . . is it a regular
interval that they get evaluated?
Carla Male:
— So if I could just ask for clarification. This is with respect to performance
monitoring?
Hugh
Gordon: —
Yes.
[11:45]
Carla Male:
— Okay. So I would say we do ask for performance surveys. We do ask for regular
information from people who have contact with the vendors themselves. Certainly
when a contract is up for renegotiation, that is a typical time where you can
take a look at the performance and, you know, integrate that in what you’re
going to do going forward.
But having said that, we
don’t encourage people to wait until that point. If there’s something critical
happening or a conversation that needs to happen with a vendor so that it can
improve for both parties, we would encourage frequent communication just to be
able to resolve it in the moment. Thank you.
Hugh
Gordon: —
And then what action if any is taken when a supplier is found not to be
performing at a satisfactory level?
Carla Male:
— When there is evidence that there is non-performance . . . All of
our contracts include key performance indicators and service levels that we
have expectations for. It would begin with a conversation, but it can end with
termination provisions that are in contracts as well.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Has any of that happened, or an instance like that occurred in the last
. . . say, last year?
Carla Male:
— Certainly I would say conversations have been had. That part is absolutely
true. I don’t have the data on, you know, termination for cause, but we never
want to get to that point. It’s the early intervention that really we rely on.
Hugh
Gordon: —
I know you had implemented a recommendation with respect to conflict of
interest and put in place a system for that. I’m just curious if any member of
a subcommittee, a tender subcommittee member has been found to be in conflict
of interest, say, after a purchase was completed.
Carla Male:
— I am not aware of any case.
Joan
Pratchler: —
No more questions from me.
Hugh
Gordon: —
I think we’re good.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions
from committee members on this chapter? Not seeing any, I’d welcome a motion to
conclude consideration of chapter 13.
James
Thorsteinson: —
I’ll so move.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, we’re going to move
right along here and . . . Oh, sorry. Moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. Okay, we’ll move right along and
turn our attention to chapter 14. I’ll turn it to the Provincial Auditor.
Jason
Wandy:
— Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Saskatchewan Health Authority is responsible for
the planning, organization, delivery, and evaluation of the health services it
provides, including discharging patients from its hospitals. Discharging
patients in a timely, safe manner is critical for effective bed management so
beds are available when needed. If managed well, timely patient discharge can
significantly improve bed access and patient flow.
Chapter
14 of our 2025 report volume 1 reports the results of our fourth follow-up
audit of management’s actions on the two remaining recommendations we
originally made in 2015 about the Authority’s processes for the safe and timely
discharge of hospital patients from its two largest acute care facilities in
Regina: the Pasqua and Regina General hospitals.
By
February 2025 the Authority implemented the two remaining recommendations. We
found the Authority used a team-based care approach at the Pasqua Hospital and
continued to advance toward doing so at the Regina General Hospital through the
negotiation of a new physician services agreement. Communication among
team-based health care professionals provides complete information to help make
informed decisions about in-hospital patient care and estimate timely and safe
discharge dates for patients.
The
Authority also implemented a process to audit the completion of medication
reconciliations at both Regina hospitals. While the Authority found staff
continued to inconsistently complete medication reconciliations upon patient
discharge, it was committed to improving results in this area and periodically
reported results to its board.
The
Authority’s report to the board in September 2024 indicated health care staff
appropriately completed on average over 50 per cent of medication
reconciliations audited across the province between July 2023 and June 2024.
Consistent completion of medication reconciliations at patient discharge can
help to reduce adverse drug-related incidents or unplanned hospital
readmissions.
I’ll
now pause for the committee’s consideration.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Okay, thank you very much
for the follow-up. The committee’s considered these recommendations. We’ve had
the report of implementation that’s occurred. Any brief remarks from the ADM
before we see if there’s any questions?
Norman
O’Neill:
— On this one, it notes that the intent of the recommendation has been met or
implemented in all cases, so I’ll leave comments on the table.
Chair Wotherspoon: — You bet. Any questions,
folks? MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you. What tools do you
use to evaluate the efficacy of your collaborative in-patient care model?
Derek
Miller:
— So I’ll just take the opportunity to just share a little bit of information
about the model and then talk about how we’re monitoring that. So the
collaborative in-patient care model is operating in medicine units at Pasqua
Hospital, where multidisciplinary bedside rounds and team-based care processes
are in place. And the model uses unit-based care teams led by physicians and
supported by nurses, pharmacists, occupational therapists, physical therapists,
and other health care professionals working collaboratively on the same
hospital unit.
The
model supports regular multidisciplinary bedside rounds, improved communication
among health care professionals, and coordinated discharge planning for
patients. And we certainly recognize that effective communication and
coordination among health care professionals involved in patient care is
important for supporting safe patient care transitions, including timely
discharge.
And
as we’ve implemented that model, one of the ways that we evaluate or assess it
is through Accreditation Canada, who’s an independent national, even
international, surveyor of health care organizations and assessing them against
standards that have been established. And Accreditation Canada, they would be
in a position to assess communication between providers, how we’re documenting
that, and how we’re planning for discharges of patients, and the pieces of
which are part of the collaborative in-patient care model. So it is a way for
us to get feedback as well in terms of areas for improvement as we care for our
patients.
Joan Pratchler: — So do I hear you say you
rely on Accreditation Canada to inform the success of this?
Derek
Miller:
— That is one of the ways. I think operationally, locally they do monitor how a
unit is performing on a more day-to-day basis, but otherwise no, I guess,
formal evaluation of the model per se.
Joan Pratchler: — Are you considering doing
that?
Derek
Miller:
— Currently that isn’t part of our plan. Our intentions are . . . And
as the Provincial Auditor found, we’ve been very successful at Pasqua Hospital.
And there’s improvements that need to be made at RGH, Regina General Hospital,
in order to fully implement a collaborative in-patient care model. And that’s
our area of focus right now.
Joan Pratchler: — So do I hear you say it’s
sort of a pilot at this point and you’re looking to move that model throughout
the system?
Derek
Miller:
— It’s not a pilot. It’s implemented, and we have progressed considerably
things like bedside rounding and multidisciplinary care planning at Regina
General. As the Provincial Auditor found, there was a physician contract that
needed to be addressed. And that’s now been agreed to, which is allowing us to
move forward with the remaining components of the collaborative in-patient care
model at Regina General Hospital.
Joan Pratchler: — So that’s only on the
medical unit, or do the medicine units . . .
Derek
Miller:
— Those are on the medicine units, yeah.
Joan Pratchler: — Medicine units. And that’s
the only ones? Are you anticipating to have that moved throughout the other
units or just there?
Derek
Miller:
— We have elements of the collaborative in-patient care model like
multidisciplinary bedside rounding, team-based care as a principle, focusing on
the patient, and involving the family in that rounding. So that is built in
too, beyond just the medicine units that we’re talking about?
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. Just further to that
when this model was being, you know, thought about implementing, could you
share with us the points in the process of that from inception to pilot to
benchmarks, health care workers and patients were consulted in conceiving of
that model?
Derek
Miller:
— The collaborative in-patient care model has been in place within Regina for a
number of years now. It was initially brought in as a pilot within a unit. And
at that time there was a lot of consultation with physician leaders, with
staff, as well as patient family partners were engaged as it’s very patient and
family oriented. And so based on that feedback and the development of the
model, it was implemented. And then since that time it has been expanded within
the other units and then also to Regina General Hospital.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you. Turning to
MedRecs [medical reconciliation] at discharge, I noticed in the recommendation
it addresses only acute care patients. So question no. 1 is, what
percentage of MedRecs are now being actually completed for acute care patient
discharge?
Norman
O’Neill:
— So this is something that we don’t have right in front of us. But again this
is one that we could probably get over the course of lunch and we’ll try and
table it after lunch, if that works for you.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. And so acute care
patients, you know, they’ve had their hip replacement. They’re done, they go
home; here’s the prescriptions you need; check with your doctor.
The
ones I’m really interested in is long-term care. So often there’s challenges
where they’re discharged and MedRec finished, complete at the hospital. And
then hopefully in the long-term care home they’re re-evaluated at that point.
[12:00]
So
the percentage of the MedRecs that are completed in acute care, I’m assuming is
100 per cent? What would be the MedRec completions for long-term care clients
upon discharge?
Derek
Miller:
— Sorry. So just to clarify the question. And so we’re going to follow up to
provide you with the acute care discharges, the percentage that have a
completed MedRec on discharge.
Joan Pratchler: — Can you add . . .
Yeah.
Derek
Miller:
— And so you’re asking within that, what portions are completed for those going
to long-term care?
Joan Pratchler: — Two separate: acute care
MedRecs percentage completed; long-term care MedRecs percentage completed upon
discharge.
Derek
Miller:
— Sorry. On discharge from long-term care?
Joan Pratchler: — No. They’ve come in; Mrs.
Smith has had a stroke. She goes into the hospital, goes through the process,
is now going to be discharged. I assume her MedRec going back to that care
home, if she came from a care home — acute care, now going to long-term care —
that a MedRec is completed as well.
Derek
Miller:
— Yeah.
Joan Pratchler: — Are they subsumed in acute
care? Or are they just from long-term care facility, hospital interim, and then
back to long term?
Derek
Miller:
— So the first number that you asked for, which would be acute discharges, they
would capture patients that would be discharged back to their home, with home
care potentially, or they would be discharged to a long-term care facility.
They would be captured in that.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. Okay. Then that’s
fine. That would be helpful. Perfect. Thanks. That’s all the questions I have.
Chair Wotherspoon: — No further questions over
here. Any further questions, members? Not seeing any. Again I want to thank all
those involved for the actions taken to implement these recommendations and the
important work on these fronts. I would welcome a motion to conclude
consideration of chapter no. 14.
James Thorsteinson: — I’ll so move.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Okay. Moved by Deputy
Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Okay. I guess looking to
my officials here, we’d like to get through 15 if we can. I think that’s
preferable than bumping it into the afternoon, because then it pushes
everything back and who knows where we get to? Maybe we all get out of here at
midnight or something. So are you okay if we focus in on 15 and hope to
conclude its consideration before lunch?
Norman
O’Neill:
— Yes.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Okay. We’ll turn our
attention then to chapter 15, and I’ll turn it back to the Provincial Auditor.
Jason
Wandy:
— Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Saskatchewan Health Authority is responsible for
the planning, organization, delivery, and evaluation of the health services
that it provides, including treating patients at risk of suicide.
By
February 2025 the Authority implemented the six remaining recommendations. We
found the Authority analyzed key data about suicide rates and prevalence of
suicide attempts to identify communities with the highest need for services.
Its analysis resulted in adding key positions to two communities, North
Battleford and Meadow Lake, to increase services to patients at risk of
suicide.
The
Authority also analyzed barriers to patients attending scheduled appointments —
those appointments could be virtual or in person — and took steps to address
the barriers, such as providing transportation options to patients. Our testing
of 25 patient files admitted to emergency departments for suicide ideation,
self-harm, or attempted suicide found the Authority conducted suicide
screenings and psychiatric consultations when required. It also followed up
with patients discharged from emergency departments to encourage further
treatment where needed.
Finally
the Authority required staff working with patients at risk of suicide to
complete mandatory training and began tracking training completed by staff. It
expected to provide staff with any missed training in 2025‑26. Having
effective processes to treat patients at risk of suicide in the northwest
service area helps patients receive needed support and treatment.
I’ll
now pause for the committee’s consideration.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Okay. Thank you very much
for the follow-up here and this very important work and focus. I’ll turn it
over . . . We have the update here with the implementation and the
actions taken. If there’s any brief remarks before we see what we have for
questions.
Norman
O’Neill:
— Just as the auditor has noted, all recommendations in this chapter have been
implemented. So we’d be pleased to just go straight to questions.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Great. Committee members,
any questions? MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you. Regarding
recommendation no. 1, is there a report on that? And if so, where is that
accessible?
Julia
Pemberton:
— Thank you very much. Happy to be back. Julia Pemberton, vice-president for
the North. So we did, as the auditor noted, complete the recommendations by
engaging with multiple partners and multiple data sources to inform an analysis
on ongoing service planning and resource allocation decisions, with a
commitment to continuing annual review of suicide-related data to support
alignment of services with areas of highest needs across the Northwest.
And
we use this analysis to realign and enhance mental health and addiction
resources in communities with higher identified need, including La Loche,
Buffalo Narrows, Ile-a-la-Crosse, Lloydminster, Meadow Lake, and North
Battleford. So it’s an analysis, not a formal report.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. Is there going to be a
formal report?
Julia
Pemberton:
— We’ve used the analysis to inform our investments.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Just wondering if you could
tell the committee today what specific supports were implemented to each
community designated as high risk in suicide attempts, and also if you could
provide any statistics on suicide attempts in each community.
Julia
Pemberton:
— Thanks for the question. So we did add two psychiatric liaison nurse
positions in North Battleford and two assessor coordinator positions in Meadow
Lake. The data that we reviewed between April 2024 and February 2025 states
there were 18 suicides in northwest Saskatchewan, compared with 28 earlier
reported in 2018.
And
then recent data from the coroner services indicates that there were 21
suicides in the Northwest in 2025, with five suicide deaths to May 19th in
2026.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: — So new resources were
allocated to those locations that you just mentioned? Those were new? They
weren’t reallocated from somewhere else leaving a gap in another location?
Julia
Pemberton:
— Correct.
Joan Pratchler: — What new mental health
roles, if any, have been deployed to those high-risk areas?
Julia
Pemberton:
— Thank you for the question. Psychiatry services have been enhanced in the far
North and include an additional twice-monthly clinic on-site visit based in
Ile-a-la-Crosse and La Loche, as well as weekly enhanced virtual clinics to
both sites.
Mental
health nurse and counsellor positions to support mental health and addictions
presentations in the emergency room specifically have been made permanent in
North Battleford and Meadow Lake. That’s in addition to the other positions in
those communities. And we recently approved funding for a coordinator social
worker position to support northern psychiatry clinics.
Joan Pratchler: — And are they fully staffed?
Julia
Pemberton:
— I can confirm that with you over lunch. Thank you.
Joan Pratchler: —
Sounds good. Talk
about training for the staff that’s in northwest Saskatchewan. How often is the
training going to be renewed, and how does the ministry plan to ensure training
remains up to date?
Julia Pemberton: —
Okay, thank you. All clinicians in the Northwest have received core suicide
risk assessment training with additional specialized training delivered in
high-risk areas, such as the former Keewatin Yatthé region, to strengthen
response capacity. And recently the Saskatchewan Health Authority launched a
suicide prevention program clinical standard in alignment with the Health
Standards Organization’s suicide prevention program required organizational
safety practice.
A suicide risk assessment and management
in mental health and addictions services’ clinical procedure will be rolled out
for training in the summer of 2026, and will be in effect by the end of the
calendar year. A suicide risk assessment for non-mental health and addictions
service lines’ clinical procedures is in development and anticipated to be in
effect early in the ’27‑28 fiscal year.
Clinical standards and clinical
procedure learning modules are self-paced and on demand and will support the
training required across the SHA.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay. Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: —
I’m wondering if you could share with the committee today how many patients
have accessed and utilized psychiatric consultation.
[12:15]
Julia
Pemberton:
— Thank you for the question. We will endeavour to get an answer to you for the
total number of visits for psychiatry across the province in 30 days.
Hugh Gordon: — And if I could ask you also
to tag onto that what the wait times are for accessing those services, that
would be great. Thank you.
Joan Pratchler: — What
are some of the methods for SHA . . . Or what methods does the SHA
use to provide on-call psychiatry?
Julia Pemberton:
— Thank you for the question. We do have 24‑7 psychiatry on call in
Saskatoon and Regina. And all of our adult in-patient treatment centre beds
have access to psychiatry on call, 24‑7.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So do I hear you saying that’s telephone, Telehealth, or in person?
Julia Pemberton:
— In person in the urban centres, but if you’re outside the urban centres you
would have telephone access.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. So my question is regarding . . . Telehealth or telephone? I’m
confused. Maybe I didn’t hear you.
Julia Pemberton:
— Telephone.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay, were there any barriers to that at all?
Julia Pemberton:
— No.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And how many clients typically receive non-person psychiatry supports? You
know, telephone or . . .
Julia Pemberton:
— So how many clients receive virtual support for psychiatry?
Joan
Pratchler: —
Yeah, and how many . . . It sounds to me that urban has in-person but
up north is not in person?
Julia Pemberton:
— That’s for the . . . so for on call. So if I’m a physician in a
small — like in Nipawin — ER and I need to consult psychiatry, I can pick up
the phone and call the psychiatrist on call in Saskatoon.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And so up north it’s pretty much all telephone? Or is it in person?
Julia Pemberton:
— We have in-person. So we’ve enhanced the in-person clinic coverage up in the
far northwest.
Joan
Pratchler: —
What extent?
Julia Pemberton:
— Twice. I just read that.
Joan
Pratchler: —
I did not listen, clearly.
Julia Pemberton:
— No, that’s okay. Let me just find it for you. So psychiatry services were
enhanced in the far North and include an additional twice-monthly clinic on
site, and that’s in Ile-a-la-Crosse and La Loche. And it’s augmented with
weekly virtual clinics at both sites. So twice a month they’re in person, but
each week they have access. So it’s in-person, virtual, in-person, virtual.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Yeah, I think it’s recommendation no. 5 with respect to analyzing the
reasons why patients are missing appointments for mental health services,
out-patient services. I noticed that you said it was implemented, but I wonder
if maybe you could put a little bit more detail into the actions that you were
taking.
You mentioned there’s a
standardized no-show tracking process, corrective actions introduced, including
appointment reminders, etc. But with respect to that recommendation, what
analysis of those reasons was conducted, and what are some of the reasons you
can share with us that were prevalent that . . . I mean obviously
you’re addressing them. I’m just curious what you were addressing, what reasons
you were addressing.
Julia Pemberton:
— So as you mentioned and you’re aware, we did develop a work standard that was
developed and deployed that required staff to follow up with patients who miss
appointments, document contact attempts, and also record reasons for
non-attendance using a standardized no-show data collection tool. So we’re able
to provide that data for you. We use this data to analyze and to implement
targeted actions to address barriers, including encouraging patients to
confirm, cancel, or reschedule appointments; improving communication of
appointment details; and providing transportation support, such as taxi
vouchers and staff-assisted transport where required.
We do have data from 2024 and
2025 that show the reasons for missed appointments. The largest reason in 2024
at 49.3 per cent is the patient forgot. That was reduced with the actions we
implemented in 2025 to 29.4 per cent, still being the largest reason for missed
appointments.
Hugh
Gordon: —
And I imagine transportation was a barrier you identified. And I guess
generally speaking, since you implemented this — it doesn’t say when you
implemented this, if it was early in this new year — if you had any noticeable
improvements on show-up time for these appointments?
Julia Pemberton:
— Transportation was also tracked as a reason. You’re correct. And it was
around 4 per cent in 2024 and 8 per cent in 2025.
Hugh
Gordon: —
So it went up. Okay.
Julia Pemberton:
— So we continue to monitor these and implement additional actions in a quality
improvement framework.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Okay. Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Not seeing any further
questions on this chapter. I’d welcome a motion to conclude consideration.
James
Thorsteinson: —
I’ll so move.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. We’re 12:23 here.
You guys want to go at 1 o’clock as planned? Do you need 1:15? I’m looking to
committee members, officials, the auditor, the comptroller as well. 1:15, nod.
1 o’clock? What’s your pref, folks?
A Member: — 1:15.
Chair
Wotherspoon: —
Okay, let’s convene again at 1:15.
[The committee recessed from
12:27 until 13:17.]
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, folks, we’ll
reconvene the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. And we’re going to turn
our attention to the considerations before us on the agenda this afternoon. And
we’re going to start with a new chapter with new recommendations, that being
chapter 6 from the 2025 report volume 2. And I’m going to turn it over to the
Provincial Auditor for her presentation.
Jason Wandy:
— Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chapter 6 of our 2025 report volume 2 describes the
results of the annual audit of the Saskatchewan Health Authority for the 2025
fiscal year. We found the Authority’s financial statements were reliable, and
it complied with the authorities governing its activities related to financial
reporting and safeguarding public resources.
Additionally the Authority
had effective rules and procedures to safeguard public resources other than the
three new recommendations described in this chapter. The Authority also
implemented three of our previous recommendations during fiscal 2024‑25.
It finalized the remaining key aspects, such as security or disaster recovery
requirements, of its IT service level agreement with eHealth Saskatchewan,
improving its ability to effectively monitor eHealth’s provision of IT
services.
Additionally while the
Authority continued to work toward fully implementing the administrative
information management system, or AIMS, it shared lessons learned with other
government agencies leading significant IT projects. Doing so can help avoid
system implementation failures on similar IT projects.
The Authority’s
implementation of AIMS also enabled it to appropriately separate incompatible
duties when setting up vendors and paying staff. On page 42 we recommend the
Saskatchewan Health Authority regularly monitor whether users with conflicting
roles process payment transactions without involving others.
Our review of Authority user
access in AIMS identified 19 users with the ability to enter and approve
invoices. We found the Authority did not have established practices to monitor
whether users with these conflicting roles processed payment transactions
without involving others. Our analysis of 2024‑25 financial data in AIMS
did not identify any inappropriate payment transactions where the same user
entered and approved an invoice.
Lack of data analytics or
reports to regularly monitor whether users with conflicting roles processed
payment transactions without involving other individuals increases the risk of
the Authority processing inappropriate financial transactions or not catching
errors or fraud.
On page 43 we recommend the
Saskatchewan Health Authority prepare and review sufficient financial
reconciliations. AIMS created challenges in preparing sufficient and timely
financial reconciliations for accounts receivable, payroll, and cash, given the
Authority’s inability to obtain detailed reports from the general ledger.
We examined 31 bank
reconciliations the Authority completed throughout fiscal 2024‑2025 and
found 21 not prepared or reviewed timely — that is within seven weeks of month
end — during the year. We also identified unreconciled differences in 4 out of
14 bank reconciliations we tested at March 31st, 2025. The unreconciled balance
for these four reconciliations totalled about $6 million. As of April 2025
the Authority was working to reconcile the differences and correct the
financial records where necessary.
We also found two instances
where payroll reconciliations and two instances where accounts receivable
reconciliations were not done timely during 2024‑25. Regular
reconciliations check the accuracy and reliability of accounting records.
Consistent preparation and review of sufficient reconciliations help to
identify issues and allow for corrective action in a timely manner.
On page 44 we recommend the
Saskatchewan Health Authority consistently maintain approved timecards to
support payroll amounts. Payroll is the Authority’s largest expense, amounting
to over $2.7 billion in fiscal 2024‑25, including over
200 million related to overtime pay. We tested 80 payroll transactions for
both in-scope and out-of-scope staff and found over 25 per cent of the
timecards we tested lacked appropriate approvals, including 21 instances where
the Authority was unable to provide timecards.
The Authority expects staff
to complete manual timecards to help track and record hours worked. However the
Authority was working towards implementing electronic timecard approvals. Doing
so should create efficiencies and help the Authority keep better records of
timecard approvals. Timecard approval is an important step in managing employee
attendance and making sure staff get paid accurately for time worked. It is one
of the final checks to help ensure payroll calculations are based on accurate
and approved time records.
I’ll now pause for the
committee’s consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you very much for
the focus of the chapter and the new recommendations. I’ll turn it over to ADM
O’Neill for a brief response, and then we’ll see where questions are.
Norman O’Neill:
— I’ll just touch on recommendations 2, 3, and 4, which are new. I believe the
others are considered implemented.
So starting at recommendation
2, which is in regards to the SHA regularly monitoring whether users with
conflicting roles process payment, the SHA has implemented system-based
monitoring processes to identify segregation of duties and conflicts. Access controls
are configured to restrict payment processing to authorized users who do not
have conflicting entry or approval roles.
The SHA conducts periodic
reviews of system access to identify and address conflicts in user roles and
permissions. Where conflicting roles are identified, corrective action is
taken, including removal or adjustment of system access. A formal process for
routine segregation of duties, reporting, and review of conflicting roles will
be developed. User requirements will be reviewed to reduce the number of users
with conflicting roles where possible by September 30th, 2026, and reports will
be developed by June 30th, 2026 and reviewed monthly to ensure users with
conflicting roles are not processing payments without involving others.
Surrounding the
recommendation for the SHA to prepare and review sufficient financial
reconciliations, we consider this recommendation fully implemented at this time
internally. The SHA recognizes that timely and complete financial
reconciliations are required to ensure accuracy and reliability of financial
records. The SHA treasury team has implemented defined timelines requiring bank
reconciliations to be completed within six weeks of month end, with approvals
finalized by week seven.
SHA corporate reporting has
implemented a reconciliation tracking process that assigns clear ownership for
all accounts requiring reconciliation. Standardized templates and documentation
requirements have been introduced to improve consistency and quality of
reconciliations.
Payroll and accounts
receivable reconciliation processes were strengthened through improved
tracking, monitoring, and follow-up processes. Monthly monitoring is in place
to track completion status and address overdue reconciliations, and full
completion with reconciliation timelines was achieved on March 31st, 2026.
The final recommendation I’ll
touch on is for the SHA to consistently maintain approved timecards to support
payroll amounts. The SHA recognizes that approved timecards are required to support
accurate payroll processing and validation of employee hours worked. Managers
are responsible for reviewing and approving timecards within existing systems
until new time validation and scheduling functionality can be implemented.
Payroll sends out regular
communications to reinforce timecard approval requirements and manager
accountability. Monitoring processes are in place to identify missing or
unapproved timecards, and follow-up happens with responsible managers.
And thus concludes my
comments.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thank you. And
thank you for the status update as well. Just to clarify, I guess we have three
brand new recommendations. Then we have the couple outstanding ones as well,
where there’s been . . . you’ve reported implementation on those
fronts, correct? And then three new recommendations that are new to this
committee here today, just for members and everybody to have a sense of that.
And at this time I’ll open it up to committee members for questions. MLA
Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you. It looks like the
timeline for the implementation of the timecard approvals, the third new
recommendation there, it looks to be end of fiscal year ’27‑28. I was
just wondering if you could explain for the committee why it’s going to take
that much longer to fully implement that recommendation.
Mike
Northcott:
— Good afternoon. My name is Mike Northcott. I’m the chief human resources
officer here with the SHA. So right now we’re working on a replacement for the
time validation and scheduling technology solution. So we do need to go through
that process. And the existing processes will be in place until that new
consistent time validation technology solution and processes are put in place.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: — And that’s going to take two
years?
Mike
Northcott:
— We’re on the front end of that. We’re actually evaluating the products next
week. We have some good engagement on that. So once we have the vendor
identified, then we’ll be able to determine a more precise implementation path
and time frame. But that’s where we are right now.
Joan Pratchler: — And that’s still with
eHealth?
Mike
Northcott:
— SHA is leading that.
Joan Pratchler: — I’d like to talk a little
bit about AIMS. Can you share any details about the findings of the
lessons-learned document? And which agencies in the government was it shared
with?
[13:30]
Mike
Northcott:
— So that was a process that’s led by 3sHealth. So they did present it to the
steering committee, which a number of us are on. So the steering committee
includes the SHA, 3sHealth, eHealth, Ministry of Health.
Some
of those themes were increased user acceptance testing and engagement of
end-users throughout. So those are some samples of those high-level themes
there. But I don’t have the report with me to go into that level of detail, but
3S [Health Shared Services Saskatchewan] would have that information.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Just on that point, like you
had mentioned that you’re going to be utilizing a system, a rollout, the front
end, the rollout of a new scheduling solutions program for your timecard
approvals. I take it that’s not AIMS.
Mike Northcott: — No, that’s not AIMS.
Hugh Gordon: — Was that not what AIMS was
supposed to do?
Mike Northcott: — That was a component of
AIMS, but that part of the components was . . . We stopped utilizing
that. And so now we’re going back and doing assessment of, okay, what is that
solution moving forward, and really looking at what are the solutions that have
the functionality that we need across Canada, and what do we already have in
terms of licences and that sort of thing.
Hugh Gordon: — What is that going to cost
though? Like AIMS was initially billed at $80 million. It then became
$280 million. And now you’re not relying on it for payroll, for example,
or scheduling apparently — scheduling, time card approvals. So what’s the cost
of this going to be?
Andrew Will: — So we will be disclosing in
our financial statements the cost of the functionality that we were not able to
use. There were several components within the AIMS software to do different
functions for the SHA. We were able to successfully implement all the core
systems including finance, HR [human resources], supply chain. The only
component that was not successful was employee scheduling.
So
as Mike said, currently as a part of that program we did have access to
licensing for two different products that we’re currently assessing to see if
they will meet our needs. We’ll be looking at, you know, the extent to which
they’re compliant with our collective agreements. What we’ll be looking at: are
they user-friendly, functional for our staff in terms of the usability of those
two products that we do currently have licensing for? And then looking at, you
know, will there be any workarounds required as we do leverage one of those two
solutions that we do currently have licensing for?
But
there was one component in terms of a CleverAnt product that was really
intended to deal with some of the complexities of the different collective
agreement requirements that we had. And that part was the component that we had
to abandon, and now look at an employee scheduling solution from the licensing
that we have.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Well just as a follow-up
then, I would hope it’s like AIMS, with this new system. Like if it’s off the
shelf . . . AIMS was off the shelf apparently and it ended up having
to be customized to amalgamate 80‑some different legacy systems. So now
you’re talking about another off-the-shelf product that might need extra
customization.
Andrew
Will:
— So there were different components of AIMS. Some of them were, as you say,
off the shelf, so Oracle, UKG, a product — actually a Saskatchewan product —
called Andgo that were part of the collective solution. There was an additional
product that was more of a customized component, and that software was called
CleverAnt. And that was, as I mentioned, meant to kind of knit those different
systems together and then address some of the collective agreement
complexities.
And
that was the component that was not user-friendly for the people that were
doing scheduling and for our staff. So you know, we made the decision to say,
look, this is not meeting our expectations; now we’re going to revisit the
off-the-shelf solutions that were part of the licensing with AIMS, and see are
there other ways that we could do this and not rely on the CleverAnt product.
Hugh Gordon: — The follow-up there on MLA
Pratchler’s question was with respect to this lessons-learned report and the
details of those lessons learned. And I would imagine these payroll-scheduling
issues, all these other issues that you had in marrying up those old systems to
the AIMS system, would be part of those lessons learned. You’re not able to
share any of those lessons here today with us?
Andrew
Will:
— So thanks for the question. And we don’t have the document here with us
today. So what I would say is 3sHealth was the lead organization that developed
that report with input from, you know, all the stakeholders that were involved.
We could endeavour to reach out to 3sHealth and get the key themes of the
findings from that report and then provide that within 30 days.
Hugh Gordon: — Or perhaps we could ask you
to table that report. Is that possible? Are you able to table that report for
the committee?
Andrew
Will:
— So as I mentioned, 3sHealth is really the organization that’s the owner of
that report. We’d have to follow up with them but we would endeavour to do
that.
Hugh Gordon: — Sorry, I’m a little
confused. This is a report for SHA for the Ministry of Health, right? This is a
report that they did — lessons learned. This is what you guys commissioned
3sHealth to do for you. You’re saying they’re the beneficial owner of that report?
You are not the owner of that? How can you get any lessons learned on your end
if you’re not an owner of that information?
Andrew
Will:
— Well I’m just saying 3sHealth is the organization that developed that. They
were leading the AIMS implementation on behalf of the entire health system. The
SHA is one of the users of that system, but we’re not the only user of that
system. So input would come from SHA but also other organizations as well. I’m
just saying, you know, we’re happy to reach out to 3sHealth — they are the ones
that produced the document — and pass on the request in terms of providing the
report or key findings from the report.
Hugh Gordon: —
Okay. What would be a sufficient amount of time to do that, do you think?
Andrew
Will: — Thirty days.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thirty days?
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Yeah, thanks. And I
appreciate on these kind of questions, you know, where there’s multiple parties
and ministries involved, the public dollars involved. And it’s public
performance involved as well. To the best of your ability it’s nice to deal
with the facts that we’re able to at this table. Because obviously if we don’t
get the answers that are here, that are, you know, important on these fronts,
then the committee may need to look at, well who do they need to go to and have
before this committee to get that information before us? So I appreciate trying
to be as forthright as one can to make sure that the answers and information is
provided.
More questions? MLA Pratchler.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So just circling back. So AIMS was, for lack of a better term, outsourced to
eHealth to create?
Andrew
Will: —
No. 3sHealth, which is our health shared services organization, was the
leader that basically oversaw the initiative. They held the contract directly
with Deloitte, who is our systems integrator for the project.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So eHealth had nothing to do with AIMS?
Andrew
Will: —
eHealth was part of the steering committee in terms of oversight for the
project. There were some aspects that eHealth helped support in terms of, for
example, terminals for people to be able to access that software through. But
eHealth was not the organization that led the project.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. So do I hear you saying Deloitte was the one that created AIMS?
Andrew
Will: —
I’m saying that Deloitte was the systems integrator that brought the different
solutions that they were contracted to do that, and supported the integration
of those different systems to meet the needs that had been defined by the
health system.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So I just want to ask another question about the Sask product angle. Can you
tell me more about that?
Andrew
Will: —
Yes. So there was a product developed quite a number of years ago by the former
Saskatoon Health Region that helped automate being able to offer shifts out to
employees and then they could accept that electronically. And so as a part of
this solution we were very pleased that that product is part of the collective
solution.
And
we still have that available to us as a part of meeting the needs of the health
system. So yeah, we’re really proud of . . . And actually at the time
there was a partnership between the former Saskatoon health region and I think
the company’s name was Noodle Cake at the time that partnered together to
create that product.
[13.45]
Joan Pratchler: — And so who is navigating
the coordination of all this again? Is it going to be Deloitte again? Is this
AIMS 2.0?
Andrew Will:
— So the AIMS project has closed out. It’s ended; it’s done. As I mentioned,
all of the functionality was successful — finance, HR, supply chain — with the
exception of employee scheduling. So we’ve closed that project out.
Now the SHA will be leading
the solutioning for employee scheduling and time entry. So that will be us
directly. And I’m confident that our team will find a positive solution for
that.
As a part of that work, we’re
also going to be looking at what is the model to support front-line managers in
terms of how they schedule staff as well. And you know, can we see a little bit
more of . . . Another learning for us was a decentralized approach
where schedulers are a little closer to the facilities and they know the staff
and they know the facility. So we’ll be looking at two things: what’s our
process for supporting managers in scheduling employees, but also what is the
technical solution that we can use. And our goal will be find an off-the-shelf
solution, first looking at the two that we have licensing for currently.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay, so SHA isn’t developing its own IT system to make . . .
Andrew Will:
— No. We will not be doing that. No.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Let’s not. Yeah. Okay, good idea. Yeah, good.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Who’s on the steering
committee that you referenced with respect to guiding the project? You
mentioned that eHealth was on the steering committee. Who else was on that
steering committee?
Mike Northcott:
— There were eHealth, 3sHealth, SHA, Ministry of Health, Cancer Agency.
Andrew Will:
— Oh and we have an affiliate representative.
Mike Northcott:
— Oh yeah, an affiliate representative.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you.
Mike Northcott:
— If I could just follow up on previous questions around the report and some of
those areas. We did find some further information, so I just wanted to share
that.
So the extent of system
testing, so end-to-end testing was a theme. User training, so timing of when
that training is done, tailoring it to address the different needs of the
different user groups. Go-live preparations, so all the pieces that go in to go
live — cut over to the new system, management of technical support once
launched. And project management lessons learned, so data quality review and
sign-offs. And then technology management lessons learned, so engaging business
stakeholders early in the program.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Pratchler.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So those seem like pretty basic IT metrics to have in place before you even
start a massive project like that. Were they?
Mike Northcott:
— Those are the themes. So those are the buckets. So there’s more detail within
those buckets, right, around improvements. So for instance user training, there
was user training done. But can we improve? Is there ways to improve that
training, such as the time that that’s delivered, maybe how it’s delivered,
those types of things.
So it’s not saying that we
didn’t do training. We did. I was there; I took it. But is there areas where we
could have, you know, in retrospect and doing next time, is there ways to
improve those areas?
Joan
Pratchler: —
That’s just my reflection on that. It’s a massive, massive project that had
several overruns, not minimal, that those would have been up front, things you
would kind of do on a pilot project before you throw it out through the whole
thing. I don’t know. It just seemed odd. I didn’t understand why.
Mike Northcott:
— Well like I said, that’s high-level areas that I’m talking about, right? So
the training as the example, we did training. When you go through an
implementation, in retrospect there’s always things that you could say, oh you
know, we could improve upon that if we did this tweak. So it’s not saying that
we need to . . . Oh, you know, we did training. It’s just how do we
improve upon that.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions,
committee members?
So we have three new
recommendations before it. To make sure I understand properly, I think we have
reported out that we have progress on recommendations 1 and 3 and compliance,
implementation with respect to recommendation 2. Is that correct?
Norman O’Neill:
— That would be the auditor.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — The auditor comes in and
she’ll assess whether you’ve done what you’ve said you’ve done and whether that
fully satisfies the . . . But right now from your perspective, this
is what you’ve reported out to us, I believe. Does that capture it?
Norman O’Neill:
— It does capture it. I was just mixed up on process.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — No, that’s good, that’s
good. Yeah, she’ll come, and that’s a good thing. I know we have thousands of
people that tune in to watch the Public Accounts from every corner of
Saskatchewan. And for those that are watching, it’s good for them to actually know
we actually have a really thorough follow-up, right?
So we get, you know, the
information that’s supplied here. We get the perspective shared from the
ministry, and then there is a follow-up again by the auditor. And in fact we
track all the way through and keep bringing those recommendations back before this
committee — over many years if there’s not resolution or compliance.
But I’m sure that in this
case here, what you’ve shared will also be confirmed by the auditor. And you
know, as you move forward and take those other actions that will get those
recommendations into compliance, these will come off our work list here, the
follow-up. But it’s a good follow-up process that we have here as Public
Accounts in working with the auditor and of course the lead work of the
ministry and agencies.
At this point then I’d
welcome a motion to concur with recommendations 1 and 3 and note progress.
James
Thorsteinson: —
I so move.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. And with respect to
recommendation no. 2, that we concur and note compliance.
James
Thorsteinson: —
I so move.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair Wotherspoon: — That guy’s got a heck of a batting
average here with those motions he brings. So turning our attention now, we’ve
got a few more items on our agenda her today, some important chapters. They’re
all follow-up chapters that have been considered here at the table before, and
I’m going to turn it over to our Provincial Auditor once again to focus now on
chapter 26.
Jason
Wandy: —
Thank you. The Saskatchewan Health Authority uses private operators of
special-care homes to provide 24‑hour care to those Saskatchewan
residents who can no longer care for themselves. In 2024‑25, the
Authority contracted 15 special-care homes in Saskatoon and surrounding area
for a total cost of just over $127 million.
Chapter
26 of our 2025 report volume 2 describes the results of our third follow-up of
management’s actions on the four remaining recommendations we originally made
in 2017 regarding the Authority’s processes to oversee contracted special-care
homes in Saskatoon and surrounding area.
By
June 2025 the Authority implemented the four remaining recommendations. The
Authority signed new contracts in 2024 with each of the 15 contracted
special-care homes clearly outlining the accountability relationships between
the Authority, the special-care homes, and the Ministry of Health.
The
Authority also established and included performance measures and targets,
service expectations, and reporting requirements in the new contracts. Our
testing of signed contracts for three special-care homes in Saskatoon and
surrounding area found each contract included the expected requirements. The
new contracts should help the Authority in assessing each home’s compliance
with the ministry’s Program Guidelines For Special Care Homes and work
toward improving the overall quality of resident care within these homes.
While
we found special-care homes in Saskatoon and surrounding area continue to not
meet all performance targets for quality care, they improved their results
since 2023. Although results worsened for one measure — that is, newly
occurring pressure ulcers — results improved for
four measures, those being residents in daily physical restraints, use of
antipsychotics, pain management, and residents with depression.
The Authority works with
special-care homes to address non-compliance with performance measures related
to the quality of resident care, including the option of entering into a
co-management agreement if a home continuously fails to comply with the guidelines.
We found the Authority entered into a co-management agreement with one
special-care home in Saskatoon since our 2023 follow-up audit due to a
significant non-compliance breach.
The Authority also requires
homes to provide quarterly reports on their achievement of performance measures
and targets, as well as associated corrective action plans to address any areas
of non-compliance. Effective oversight of contracted special-care homes allows
the Authority to make sure the overall quality of resident care in special-care
homes is reasonable and appropriate and aligns with the guidelines.
I’ll now pause for the
committee’s consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you very much for
the follow-up and the focus of this chapter. I’ll turn it over to ADM O’Neill
for a brief remark, and then we’ll open it up for questions.
Norman O’Neill:
— I’ll just note that we agree with the auditor’s assessment that all of these
actions have been implemented, and we would be pleased to take questions.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. Right on. Committee
members, any questions? MLA Pratchler.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Would you be able to share some of the details about the contracts signed with
the 15 care homes? Would they all be a single contract just delivered in 15
different care homes? Or are they separate contracts set out for each
individual?
Derek Miller:
— Each of the affiliate partners sign a principles-and-services agreement,
which is the contractual arrangement, and they’re individual contracts between
the SHA and that particular care home.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And can you talk a little bit about the responsibility that falls on the care
homes and the responsibilities that fall on SHA to ensure that, you know, the
contract is fulfilled properly?
Derek Miller:
— The contract outlines the service requirements, the types of beds and care
that is provided by each of the care homes. They’re independent organizations,
and so they’re responsible for the management of their day-to-day operations,
their planning, budgets, and so on. And then we provide funding to them in
order to deliver those services.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So it was mentioned that there was one facility that didn’t meet the, you know,
targeted expectations. And the result of that was increased training or
transfer of care provision to SHA?
Derek Miller:
— There was one affiliate where we entered into a co-management agreement with
them based on concerns around some quality-of-care concerns and service
delivery. And the co-management agreement basically allows the SHA to take
control of the day-to-day operations as well as to direct improvement actions
within the care home. And we work with the leadership. We provide on-site
support in order to address any of the concerns. And once they’re able to
demonstrate over a period of time that they’re meeting the standards, then we
end the co-management arrangement.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And I notice this mentions only Saskatoon and surrounding areas. Has that
expanded to the rest of the province?
Derek Miller:
— Yeah, the principles-and-services agreement that we use for our long-term
care affiliates are consistent, and they have a consistent template for all of
our long-term care affiliates. The differences would be in terms of the number
of beds and the level of care that they would be providing and the funding that
would go with them. But otherwise, across the province we have a standard
principles-and-services agreement.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And would you find the same level of success across the province as well?
Derek Miller:
— Yeah, the implementation of the principles-and-service agreement over the
last two years has been very helpful for us in terms of establishing clear
expectations for service delivery, for monitoring, reporting, and follow-up.
It’s been a significant improvement and it addresses a lot of the issues that
the Provincial Auditor identified for Saskatoon. We had similar types of
challenges elsewhere in the province, so we’ve now been able to standardize
from a continuing care perspective.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And in terms of funding, I know there were issues in years past that regional
facilities received a different kind of funding or amount of funding than
affiliates. Has that been all evened out and equitable now?
[14:00]
Derek Miller:
— With the principles-and-services agreement that we have recently entered
into, there was additional funding provided by the Ministry of Health because
there was a variation in the province from the former regional health
authorities in terms of the funding provided to affiliates. And so part of the
ministry process considered funding levels within SHA to operate facilities —
as well as affiliates — and established a consistent and standardized approach
to how money would be provided for affiliates.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Thank you. And I’m sure the affiliates appreciated that very much. Yeah, that’s
all my questions.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you. Looking to
committee members that may have other questions. Not seeing any, I’d welcome a
motion to conclude consideration of chapter 26.
James
Thorsteinson: —
I so move.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Moved by Deputy Chair
Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. We’re
going to move right along and turn our attention over to the auditor to focus
on chapter 27.
Jason Wandy:
— Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Saskatchewan Health Authority provides mental
health and addictions services in Prince Albert and surrounding areas through
in-patient, such as in hospital or recovery centres; out-patient, that is, day
programming; and community rehabilitation and residential services. The
Authority provides most of these services in the city of Prince Albert.
Chapter 27 of our 2025 report
volume 2 describes our third follow-up audit of management’s actions on the two
remaining recommendations we first made in 2018 regarding the Authority’s
processes to provide timely access to mental health and addictions services in
Prince Albert and surrounding areas. By July 2025, the Authority implemented
the two remaining recommendations.
We found the Authority
developed a provincial strategy to implement a mental health and addictions IT
system that records key information in a single client file for mental health
and addictions services provided in out-patient and in-patient settings. The
Authority has a provincial work plan for implementing the IT system and expects
all mental health and addictions services to be using the system by March 2028.
Having a single client file
that includes all mental health and addictions services provided to a client
will better help health care providers in determining the next appropriate
course of action for clients.
Additionally, we found the Authority
sufficiently collaborated with the Ministry of Social Services to enhance
access to housing for mental health and addictions clients living in Prince
Albert. The Authority also signed a data-sharing agreement with various
agencies such as the ministries of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety,
Social Services, and Health, as well as the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation,
to share certain data to support the government’s provincial approach to
homelessness or PATH initiative which is an integrated response to address the
increase in chronic homelessness.
The Authority planned to
monitor the initiative through various outcome indicators such as the number of
clients referred to supportive housing and utilization rates for shelters.
Having and monitoring outcome indicators is important as it can help the management
make informed decisions and may lead to better outcomes for people living with
complex mental health and addictions issues.
I’ll now pause for the
committee’s consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you very much for
the presentation and the follow-up on this front. I think this originally was
from the 2018 report, I think, the recommendations. Thanks as well for the
actions that have been reflected by the ministry. I’d open it up for a brief
remark from ADM O’Neill and then see if there’s questions.
Norman O’Neill:
— Just similar to the previous chapter, we agree with the assessment of the
auditor that the recommendations have been implemented, and we’d be pleased to
take questions.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. Looking to
committee members that may have questions. MLA Gordon.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. I just wonder if you could share with the committee today how the
implementation of the MHAIS system has assisted in providing mental health
services to patients in those areas, and also how that might have even helped
health care providers in providing those services.
Julia Pemberton:
— Thanks for the question. Happy to be back. So the mental health and addiction
information system does allow health care professionals to access the complete
client history, improving the clinical decision making and the continuity of
care as well as the coordination between in-patient and out-patient services.
At the core of the SHA strategy is the implementation of the mental health and
addiction information system. This provincial IT platform captures key patient
information into a single integrated electronic record across in-patient and
out-patient settings.
The single and central system
helps to ensure that relevant and timely patient information is readily
available to coordinate patient care. To date, the mental health and addiction
information system is used in all SHA in-patient mental health acute care
facilities, used in all SHA out-patient mental health and addictions programs
across the province.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. The auditor also noted in her report that stable housing could lead
to better outcomes for people living with complex mental health and addictions
issues. I also noted that there was an announcement of 155 supportive housing
units, 120 emergency shelter, 30 complex needs shelter spaces. And I’m just
wondering, you know, how many mental health and addictions clients have been
given access to housing either through those facilities or through the PATH
initiative? If they’re all the same, forgive me for confusing them.
Julia Pemberton:
— So thank you for the question. We really want to acknowledge that the
collaboration between health and social service systems is intended to improve
the stability for individuals with complex needs such as mental health and
addiction, and that stable housing is recognized as a key factor in improving
mental health and addiction outcomes and reducing repeat crisis service use.
The integration of housing
and health care data better supports planning, targeting of services, and
evaluation of system performance. The SHA also continued participation in the
Reaching Home community advisory board in Prince Albert, supporting homelessness
reduction strategies and youth housing initiatives. In November 2024 this
resulted in an agreement with the community-based organization to add five
additional youth housing spaces for individuals affected by mental health and
addiction challenges.
This initiative focuses on
addressing chronic homelessness through coordinated housing and support
services. PATH includes commitments to expanding support housing, emergency
shelter spaces, and complex needs and shelter capacity across multiple
communities including Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, and Moose Jaw.
And to get access to this
supportive housing there is a standardized assessment tool to apply to the
criteria for accessing the housing. This tool was developed in collaboration
with Social Services, the Ministry of Health, and the SHA, but at this time we
can’t identify a certain number of people with mental health and addictions who
are accessing housing because that tool is for all people who need that
housing, not just mental health and addictions clients.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Just as a follow-up on that. Stable housing has been identified as a key factor
in improving the outcomes for people dealing with complex mental health and
addictions issues, and this is . . . You guys have got now a
coordinated approach with Social Services on this.
I would really hope that the
Authority is interested in those numbers, because that’s going to give you a
really good indication as to whether or not you’ve got people that are falling
out of the program or having difficulties staying in addictions treatment or
attending counselling sessions, whatever the case may be.
Like the whole success of
your program depends on that partnership. So I would really hope that you would
have that information. And I know that wasn’t the purview of the Provincial
Auditor here, but I would think that would be very important information for
you guys to have. And I’d love for you to be able to share that at some future
point so that we could start to measure the outcomes better. Correct?
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Correct me if I’m totally off base in that line of thinking. But if this is
. . . And I’m just saying this because, you know, I’ve attended
meetings in Prince Albert with key stakeholders on this issue, and housing is a
major issue in an area like Prince Albert when it comes to mental health,
addictions, all kinds of other socio-economic factors that have impacts beyond
that. It has impacts on the business community. It has impacts on the
neighbourhood, on all kinds of things, the quality of life.
So that’s why I’m asking you
that question, and I really hope that you would begin to track and measure that
in a more robust way. Thank you.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So my follow-up question is, do you or do you not or do you have access, some
way to tell us how many spaces have been secured for clients in each of the
years ’23, ’24, ’25, and Q1 [first quarter] of ’26?
[14:15]
Julia Pemberton:
— Appreciate the question. And totally agree that housing is integral to the
success of our clients with mental health and addictions, along with other
clients that the SHA serves. Housing continues to be a need that, in any
interaction with our services, we are asking about housing and we are working
with the partners identified in PATH and other services to make sure we secure
housing for our clients.
We do currently have a
partnership with PATH for 100 spaces. Those spaces use that standardized
assessment criteria to access, so not only for mental health and addictions but
could be for other reasons. And we currently don’t track out of those 100 spaces
how many specifically are related to mental health and addictions.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Are all of those 100 spaces used?
Julia Pemberton:
— Yes.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Oh, okay.
Julia Pemberton:
— They’re all full.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. And there’s need for more? What’s the waiting list, do you know offhand?
Julia Pemberton:
— I don’t.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Just a quick follow-up here with respect to the reporting on that. The
auditor’s report had mentioned, I believe on page 260, that you expect to begin
reporting on the PATH initiative and client indicators in late 2025. So I’m
just wondering like what are you going to be reporting on then if you’re not
keeping track of client numbers that are utilizing PATH?
Julia Pemberton:
— Thank you for your reference to page 260 in the auditor’s report,
specifically figure 1, examples of approved outcome indicators from the PATH
data-sharing agreement. We do acknowledge your previous comment that it says
that we will begin reporting on the PATH initiative’s client indicators in late
2025, and we are still in the process of initiating that reporting with PATH
and Social Services.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Any timeline as to when you’ll be done? That could be quarterly, yearly.
Julia Pemberton:
— We’ll work with our Social Services partners to develop a timeline for
reporting.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Okay, stay tuned. Thank you. That’s all my questions.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions
from committee members? Not seeing any, I’d welcome a motion to conclude
consideration of chapter 27.
James
Thorsteinson: —
I’ll so move.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, moved by Deputy
Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. We’ll
turn our attention to chapter 24, and I’ll turn it back over to the Provincial
Auditor and her office.
Jason Wandy:
— Thank you. Hard-to-recruit health care positions include those jobs
responsible for directly delivering health care services where the Saskatchewan
Health Authority has trouble in recruiting and retaining staff with the
required competencies for the role. Having staff shortages for a long period
can contribute to work overload and staff burnout.
Chapter 24 of our 2025 report
volume 2 describes the results of our first follow-up of management’s actions
on the seven recommendations we first made in 2022 regarding the Authority’s
processes to fill hard-to-recruit health care positions. By August 2025 the
Authority fully implemented three recommendations.
We found the Authority
implemented processes to determine whether student clinical placements and
post-secondary training seats purchased out of province are successful
recruitment strategies for hard-to-recruit positions. It hired almost 136 staff
who completed clinical placements with the Authority and almost 80 per cent of
graduated students from training seats purchased out of province in 2024.
Additionally the Authority
established targets and reported on performance measures, such as the chronic
vacancy rates, to evaluate the success of its recruitment and retention
strategies for hard-to-recruit positions. We found the Authority made progress
in reducing chronic vacancies in hard-to-recruit positions between June 2024
and 2025. It reported a reduction in the overall chronic vacancy rate from 4.9
per cent to 3.6 per cent.
The
Authority maintains a vacancy dashboard to track various information about
existing vacancies for hard-to-recruit positions across the province, including
the occupation, location, and facility. While the dashboard provides the
Authority with information about current staffing gaps for hard-to-recruit
positions at specific facility locations, the Authority had yet to begin
forecasting in which facility locations it expects to have the most significant
shortages of hard-to-recruit positions.
For
example, an analysis of expected staffing gaps by facility location across the
province could provide the Authority with information to help proactively
prioritize and tailor its recruitment processes accordingly, such as
considering the need for community engagement or assessing the need for
accessible housing in a community.
We
found the Authority — on a pilot basis — forecasted future needs for certain
hard-to-recruit positions for two significant capital projects under
construction in La Ronge and Grenfell. For example, the Authority’s work plan
for the project in La Ronge included the need for four registered nurses and
five licensed practical nurses. The Authority planned to fill these positions
in 2025‑26.
We
also found the Authority has individual recruitment plans for positions it
identifies as hard to recruit. Our testing of four plans for those chronically
vacant positions found that plans did not include analysis of identified root
causes to evaluate possible reasons for significant staffing gaps. Additionally
we found the plans similar in nature and not unique.
Understanding
where in the province it expects to experience the most significant shortages
of hard-to-recruit positions, and why, can help the Authority toward developing
more targeted recruitment and retention plans that address root causes, such as
lack of housing or a need for financial incentives that may be unique to
certain areas of the province.
Analyzing
expected staffing gaps by facility location across the province can assist the
Authority in determining where it needs staff most and help it implement
appropriate and targeted plans. Doing so should help the Authority minimize
service disruptions to the public by addressing positions with chronic
vacancies.
The
Authority partially implemented our recommendation on page 239, where we
recommended the Saskatchewan Health Authority implement a First Nations and
Métis recruitment and retention plan to help fill hard-to-recruit positions.
The Authority set a First Nations and Métis recruitment and retention plan,
highlighting key actions for increasing Indigenous representation within the
Authority’s workforce, along with performance measures to help assess whether
its plan is successful.
[14:30]
However
it had yet to develop targets for each performance measure, such as a target
percentage of Indigenous staff working throughout the Authority’s various
regions across the province. Lack of targets for all performance measures
limits the Authority’s ability to assess whether their First Nations and Métis
recruitment and retention plan successfully contributes toward a diverse
workforce and ultimately helps to fill hard-to-recruit positions.
The
Authority partially implemented our recommendation on page 240, where we
recommended the Saskatchewan Health Authority centralize its analysis of staff
exit surveys to inform retention strategies for hard-to-recruit positions. In
January 2024 the Authority began using a service provider to centrally
administer and collect staff exit surveys. We found the Authority shared the
survey results with senior management at least annually. However we found the
Authority has yet to analyze the results to inform any adjustments to its
retention strategies for hard-to-recruit positions. Management expected to
prioritize data analysis in fall 2025 to help inform their retention
strategies.
Staff
exit surveys can provide an organization with valuable information about where
it can improve. Lack of analysis of staff exit surveys limits the Authority’s
ability to assess the effectiveness of and adjust its recruitment and retention
efforts for hard-to-recruit positions.
I’ll
now pause for the committee’s consideration.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Okay. Well thank you very
much for the very important focus here in this presentation, the follow-up
here, the recommendations that were brought to us in the 2022 report. I’ll turn
it over to ADM O’Neill for some brief remarks. Thanks for the actions that have
been reflected in the status update. Then we’ll go to the questions.
Norman
O’Neill:
— Okay. I’ll just touch on the four outstanding recommendations, starting with
recommendations 1, 2, then 5 and 6.
So
regarding the recommendation for the SHA to determine which facility locations
have the most significant shortages of positions, the SHA uses a provincial
vacancy dashboard to monitor hard-to-recruit positions by occupation, facility
location, and duration of vacancy. This provides operational visibility into
current staffing pressures across the province.
The
SHA performs provincial workforce forecasting to identify projected shortages
in key hard-to-recruit classifications over a five-year period. While current
tools identify existing vacancies and provincial workforce gaps, there is an
opportunity to further enhance these capabilities by incorporating forecasting
of shortages at the local geographic level.
Workforce
planning and analytics teams are expanding forecasting capabilities to model
staffing needs by geography and community. Pilot work is currently under way at
two sites with phased implementation planned for additional locations. Enhanced
forecasting analysis is expected to support earlier identification of
geographical staffing shortages and improve the SHA’s ability to prioritize
recruitment actions and retention supports based on local workforce risks and
operational pressures.
The
SHA incorporates workforce planning forecast requirements associated with
upcoming capital projects and facility expansions, including the use of
advanced hiring strategies to support timely recruitment and onboarding of
staff required to safely operationalize new or expanded services.
Surrounding
the recommendation for the SHA to implement targeted plans to address
recruitment and retention, the SHA has implemented recruitment plans for
hard-to-recruit classifications. This is supported by health human resources
operational plans and aligned with the Government of Saskatchewan’s health
human resources action plan.
Recruitment
and retention strategies currently in place include domestic and international
recruitment, partnerships with post-secondary institutions, enhanced use of
social media and recruitment campaigns, and targeted incentives for rural and
remote communities. Strategies include expanding full-time positions in
high-need areas, as well as employee wellness and retention initiatives to
reduce turnover and improve workforce stability.
The
SHA also continues to support recruitment and retention through a competitive
total compensation approach that includes salary, paid time off, comprehensive
health and dental benefits, pension, professional development opportunities,
and additional recruitment and retention incentives for eligible positions and
communities. The SHA works with the Saskatchewan Healthcare Recruitment Agency
to enhance recruitment efforts locally, nationally, and internationally,
improving access to qualified candidates for hard-to-fill positions.
Moving
to recommendation 5, which is for the SHA to implement a First Nations and
Métis recruitment and retention plan, the SHA has developed and implemented a
plan which is aligned with the SHA health human resources operational plan for 2022
through 2026. The strategy is structured around four pillars which are
recruitment, retention, incentives, and training, and includes initiatives such
as partnerships with Indigenous post-secondary institutions, targeted
recruitment strategies to attract Indigenous talent, and modernization of
bursary and incentive programs to support Indigenous candidates.
The
plan also supports Indigenous employees through initiatives such as Indigenous
employee networks, improved mentorship and career advancement opportunities,
and culturally appropriate supports — for example, access to elders and healers
and Indigenous-specific cognitive behavioural therapy.
Work
under way to further strengthen measurement frameworks and align targets with
population, and work is under way to align these targets with population
demographics and workforce needs. The SHA continues to advance implementation
of the strategy in alignment with the Government of Saskatchewan, health human
resources action plan, and internal workforce planning priorities.
A
final recommendation I’ll touch on is the one regarding the SHA to centralize
its analysis of staff exit surveys. The SHA has centralized the collection of
staff exit survey data through a third-party provider, with all exit survey
information now consolidated at the corporate level.
A
standardized exit survey tool and process has been implemented to support
consistent and comparable data collection. All data collection has been
centralized. The next step for the SHA is to complete a formal, structured
analysis of exit survey results to identify key themes, root causes of
turnover, or specific retention issues related to hard-to-recruit positions.
Exit
survey results are periodically shared with SHA executive leadership to provide
visibility into reasons for workforce turnover across the organization. The SHA
plans to further analyze exit survey data to identify trends and support the
development of evidence-based retention strategies for hard-to-recruit
classifications.
And
with that I’ll complete my comments.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Thanks for the update,
the actions that have been taken. I’ll open it up now to committee members for
questions. MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: — Just wondering, when did the
work on the vacancy dashboard begin?
Mike Northcott: — That dashboard has been in
place for a number of years. I believe it was around 2022, ’23, but it’s been
in place for a number of years. If you need the exact date, I can bring that
back to you.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you, because the
timeline for implementation says it’s 2026.
Mike Northcott: —
For the dashboard?
Joan Pratchler: —
Yeah. Or am I misunderstanding that?
Mike Northcott: —
No, the vacancy dashboard we’ve been using for a number of years.
Joan Pratchler: —
Is it the geographical forecasting that is the part that we’re looking at here?
Mike Northcott: —
Yes, it is.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay.
Mike Northcott: —
And do you want me to expand on that?
Joan Pratchler: —
Yeah, if you could.
Mike Northcott: —
Yeah. So the team has started to do some work around and started with the
initial auditor recommendation around that facility level. We have found
through that work that there is . . . It’s hard to make predictions
on facility level when you have smaller numbers. So for instance, if you have five people in a
classification, one person leaving can make a big difference there. But it’s
really difficult in that small of a sample size.
So
you know, in consultation with the Provincial Auditor office, we’ve expanded
that approach to be looking at more the geographic area so that you have a
little bit more critical mass, so that you can make more accurate predictions
and better manage that. So that’s the piece that we’re working on now with
implementation target in 2026.
Joan Pratchler: — So this is providing the
data to look, so they have a sense of what classifications you’re actually
looking for to fill. Is that correct?
Mike
Northcott:
— Yes, so we’d be looking at the hard-to-recruit classifications, and we’d be
looking at factors like turnover, retirement rates, trends. So when we look at
the overall analysis on a provincial level, and there’s a number of factors
that go into it, it’s really bringing that into a local level but then also
looking at, is there some more local factors that need to be considered.
Joan Pratchler: — So it seems to me that
you’re kind of just saying, these are the list of people that we need; we now
know some of the reasons, but this is the list of people that we need to start
recruiting.
Mike
Northcott:
— Yeah, so it’s a matter of, you know, we’ve got our hard-to-recruit list, and
understanding in the big picture, in the provincial picture, where we have
those risks, where we’re projecting gaps. So we’d look at how many graduates
are coming out, how many people are exiting the system, and looking at
. . . not an exact science, but it’s a pretty robust tool. So
basically moving that to more of the local geographic area to identify, okay,
we’ve got some risks in this classification, so then what strategies do we use
to address the risks that exist.
Joan Pratchler: — So this really isn’t part of
the recruitment and retention. This is just a precursor to the ambitious
recruitment and retention plan.
Mike
Northcott:
— I think it’s part of the recruitment and retention because it’s looking at
those factors. And so on the recruitment side of things, we can be proactive if
we understand, hey, we’ve got a risk coming on this classification. And then on
the retention side of things if we can, you know, when staff have to
. . . Say there’s a gap in staffing. If we can prevent that gap, then
that creates a better work environment for those other staff that are working
at that facility.
Joan Pratchler: — So you’re already using some
of this data that you’re finding and implementing it already?
Mike
Northcott:
— Yeah, we’ve got it more on the provincial level and then in targeted areas.
So for instance the capital builds that Norm referenced there, looking at that
to do pre-hiring, so earlier hiring, so that we can ramp up to meet those
needs.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you. Do you have the
ability to give us an interim report of geographically what kind of positions
are hard to recruit for, based on geography?
Mike
Northcott:
— We have the hard-to-recruit list on a provincial level, so it’s SHA-wide. But
part of the analysis that I’m talking about with looking at more the
geography-based analysis would then lead us to a better understanding of where
we might have additional risks in certain classifications in those geographies.
So I don’t have a hard-to-recruit list per geography. We have an overall SHA.
Joan Pratchler: — So can you furnish an
interim report of what are the hard-to-recruit positions?
Mike
Northcott:
— Yeah, I believe it’s also in the auditor’s report actually listed.
Joan Pratchler: — It wouldn’t be currently? Or
has a lot changed since then?
Mike
Northcott:
— Not a lot has changed since then. It’s on our website, so I mean it’s public,
yeah.
Joan Pratchler: — In the report it says that
136 staff who completed clinical placements with the Authority, almost 80 per
cent of graduated students from training seats purchased outside of the
province came back to Saskatchewan. So 136 out of how many?
[14:45]
Mike
Northcott:
— I don’t have that exact number with me. But if we kind of extrapolate, if we
hired 80 per cent and extrapolate, it’s about 170.
Joan Pratchler: — What happened to the other
20 per cent? Where did they go?
Mike
Northcott:
— Well individuals make life choices. And you know, if someone goes away to
school in a different province, of course we want to hire them back and we
engage with them regularly to make conditional job offers. But sometimes life
circumstances happen and people make different choices as to where to live.
Joan Pratchler: — So 20 per cent is a pretty
high number not to come back after we’ve paid to train them and they stayed in
place X where they took their training. Is that what this is saying? Or they
. . .
Mike
Northcott:
— Yes, basically we’re saying that 80 per cent of them do come back — 20 make
other life choices — and of course we want to see that number increase. We want
to hire 100 per cent of people in those as well as all of our new grads in our
programs.
Joan Pratchler: — And what would be the
classification of those training seats? Are they occupational therapists? Are
they resp [respiratory] therapists? What would they typically be when they have
to go out of province for training?
Mike
Northcott:
— Yeah, those are good examples. Yeah, occupational therapists, audiologists,
speech-language pathologists. It’s just programs that we don’t offer in
Saskatchewan right now. And that’s where I’m excited about some of the new
course offerings in Saskatchewan now, with OT [occupational therapy] as well as
speech programs that are coming online as well as others as well.
Joan Pratchler: — So those are ones that are
going to be offered here in Saskatchewan, which is great.
Mike
Northcott:
— That’s correct.
Joan Pratchler: — Are those the only ones we
sent out of the province for training?
Mike
Northcott:
— No, there would be more. I was just giving some examples.
Joan Pratchler: — And so what would be the
examples? It certainly wouldn’t be nursing or medical. I mean what would be
some of the other ones?
Mike
Northcott:
— Perfusionist would be another example. So a lot of the technical training.
Joan Pratchler: — Lab techs?
Mike
Northcott:
— I don’t think lab techs is on there.
Joan Pratchler: — Yeah, I just want to
understand what are we sending them out of the province for that maybe we could
be doing here?
Mike
Northcott:
— Okay, so I did go through my binder and I found the list. So radiation
therapy, nuclear medicine technology, magnetic resonance imaging, environmental
public health, diagnostic medical stenography, respiratory therapy,
occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, electroneurophysiology,
cardiovascular perfusion, prosthetics and orthotics, and cardiology technology.
It’s those technical, a lot of them. Yeah.
Joan Pratchler: — And so of course you know my
next question’s going to be, how much does it cost us in Saskatchewan to train
health care workers from other provinces? And what would that bottom line
number be?
Norman
O’Neill:
— In other provinces?
Joan Pratchler: — How much are we paying to
get 80 per cent back?
Norman
O’Neill:
— Just for that question, it’s not something that we know. So funding is
provided through the Ministry of Advanced Education to the post-secondary
institutions. It’s not provided through the sector. So it would have to be
answered by Advanced Education.
Chair Wotherspoon: — The auditor’s got
something to offer here too.
Tara
Clemett:
— Yeah, I’ll just weigh in. And you’ll notice on page 238 the footnote at the
bottom of the page. So that is a 2025 number, but AE [Advanced Education] spent
about just over 6 million.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you.
Tara
Clemett:
— You’re welcome.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — How exactly is the SHA now
reporting on performance measures to evaluate the success of its recruitment
and retention strategies for those hard-to-recruit positions?
Mike
Northcott:
— Okay, so our key measure here is our chronic vacancies. And so that’s where
. . . I’ll just go through a few numbers. And I’m quite excited to
share them because we’ve continued to make good progress. So our
hard-to-recruit — this is permanent full-time and part-time chronic vacancies —
reduced 42 per cent from March of 2023 to March 2026. So kind of the reduction
in vacancy rate went from 5 in March of 2023 to 2.9 per cent in ’26.
I
would just pull out the nursing numbers too because we made a lot of good
progress there. Overall we’ve seen a decrease of 55.6 per cent during that same
time period, so going from 5.4 per cent to 2.4 per cent. And then we’ve seen
even more drastic results in the rural and North where we’ve seen a 69.5 per
cent reduction, going from 8.2 per cent to 2.5 per cent over that same period.
And
you know, some things that have really, really helped in that regard are the
incentives that are offered, as well as we’ve created new and enhanced
positions to enhance staffing in those areas and really stabilize staffing,
especially in those emergs in the rural and remote.
Hugh Gordon: — I guess follow-up to that,
my question was like how are you reporting on those performance measures? Like
you’ve got that information, but how are you reporting that?
Mike
Northcott:
— So we regularly report to the board. So our governance and human resources
committee, we have a standing item every quarter that we report on health human
resources initiatives and results. And this is generally the first one out of
the gate in that report.
Hugh Gordon: — So you report that to the
board?
Mike
Northcott:
— Yes.
Hugh Gordon: — This success, these
measures, performance measures, how you’re doing in these different areas,
chronic vacancies in certain positions — might be nursing — but that all gets
amalgamated, reported to the board? Do I understand that correctly?
Mike
Northcott:
— That’s right.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you.
Joan Pratchler: — Can I just do a follow-up
question on the nursing part? Has any study been done as to the amount of
nursing graduates that exit and convocate, as to how many are engaged and
employed in the SHA organization itself? Like is there any drop-offs between convocation
and direct deployment?
Mike
Northcott:
— Yes. So we work closely with Advanced Education around that, and typically we
see in the 91 per cent range there.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. And those are
full-time positions?
Mike
Northcott:
— No, those aren’t all full-time positions. Some nursing graduates come out and
they don’t necessarily want a full-time job, right. So we’ve been having
efforts to create more full-time positions because it allows us to stabilize
more and create that opportunity. But not everyone coming out of school or
later in their career wants to work full-time, so we do have part-time
positions as well.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — What
are some of the community-specific barriers the SHA is encountering in
recruitment, and how is the SHA addressing these barriers?
[15:00]
Mike Northcott:
— Thank you for your question. So a number of strategies here and I guess challenges
that I’ll identify. So sometimes the remoteness of a community brings
challenges where folks may not want to choose to live there, and so that’s
harder to recruit to those communities.
Examples in those and other
spaces of things that we’re doing is, you know, I’ll go back to when we
recruited the Philippines nurses. We created a housing registry, so kind of a
matching service to understand from the community if there’s housing available
that they would be open to renting out, their basement suite or what have you.
So that’s an example of some of the things that, you know . . .
finding solutions to those problems.
Partnering with the
Saskatchewan Healthcare Recruitment Agency. So they’re working closely with
communities to understand what are those local barriers and how do we work
together to address those.
I would also just highlight
the remote incentives. So that has been a very effective tool in our tool box.
And that, combined with the additional positions that I talked about, really
has worked well together.
Overall, you know, there’s a
lot of competition in Canada for those hard-to-recruit positions. Take
respiratory therapists as an example. There’s a lot of competition for that, so
we need to remain competitive in that.
And you know, other creative
solutions, like if someone is coming in to work in a location, do they have a
spouse? Does that spouse also have a health care background or is there a role
for them? Because often, you know, if a family is moving, then that can be very
helpful in helping to recruit and retain.
Oh I was just going to add
too, not all the hard-to-recruit positions are in rural and remote. There’s,
you know, critical care nurses, for instance, or emerg nurses. And doing
creative things. Like we’ve recently created both a critical care and an emergency
video that involved the staff and really talking about what is it like to work
in here, what’s the team atmosphere, and creating that inviting atmosphere and
encouraging colleagues to come and give ICU [intensive care unit] a try and
we’ll support you. Similar with emerg. And so we’re finding that that’s
helping.
And there’s no one solution
to the challenges, so it’s really understanding those drivers and then what can
we do to address.
Joan
Pratchler: —
One of the things that we’ve been hearing during our consultations is that SHA
doesn’t always regularly perform exit interviews with senior SHA personnel
leaving the organization. And of course we know that those have significant
institutional knowledge. Was that consistent with your review?
Mike Northcott:
— You said exit interviews, correct?
Joan
Pratchler: —
With senior . . .
Mike Northcott:
— So folks are offered an exit interview. So we do the standard exit survey,
but if someone wants an exit interview . . . We ask that question,
and if they would like an exit interview we do an exit interview.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay. Is the SHA finding the First Nation and Métis recruitment and retention
plan to be successful? If so, what would be your parameters or indicators of
that?
Mike Northcott:
— Yeah, so we’re excited to have Jennifer Ahenakew come into our organization
as the vice-president for that area. And she just brings a wealth of knowledge
and excitement and energy to this work. And since implementing the plan, like
we are seeing forward progress, but we have a long way to go as well.
And so we are seeing that
forward progress, doing things like the Indigenous employee network. So
Jennifer and I kicked that off, and it’s really around creating a welcoming
environment. It’s about helping people feel that they belong in the SHA and
have a community of support. And that’s going to help retain, but it’s also
going to help recruit when they talk to their family or friends to say, hey,
SHA really cares about this, having a representative workforce, and these are
the things that they’re doing and this is how I’m feeling about it, and come
and join our team.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And when I look at the target that’s sort of outlined here, the target was, you
know, 15 per cent, and we’re at 5.15. But now this is a bit older, right? Has
that improved, do you think, into 2026?
Mike Northcott:
— It’s improved slightly. The last metric that I saw was 5.35, but that’s when
I go back to . . . We have a lot of work to do. That’s
. . .
Joan
Pratchler: —
And is it priority work?
Mike Northcott:
— It is priority work, absolutely. Yeah.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Good. Who’s the third-party provider centralizing the exit survey data?
Mike Northcott:
— McLean & Company. They’re a Canadian company.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And how often is that data shared with leadership?
Mike Northcott:
— It’s about twice a year.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Is that enough?
Mike Northcott:
— Well we’re fairly new into the cycle. So I take your point, and we can look
at the frequency. And as we engage our senior leaders too, I think that’s part
of the question is how often and what’s the most meaningful. Really it’s about
understanding those themes and aligning strategies accordingly.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So that initiative, is that simply urban or is it going to be provincially in
the province as well?
Mike Northcott:
— Yeah, it’s provincial. It’s provincial.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank
you. What are some of the key themes and root causes of turnover that you’re
seeing in those hard-to-recruit positions?
Mike Northcott:
— Okay, I can give an overview of the reasons why we see people leaving and
some of the strategies that we’re using accordingly. So retirement is an
obvious one, that we have people leaving for retirement. We also see some folks
struggling with a change in direction of a work area and they may take on
different approaches, so really trying to support with that changed leadership
to help people with change. As you know, there’s a natural change curve that
people go through.
Supervisor factors we see, so
it’s really about developing our leaders and ensuring that that workplace is
creating a great work environment. So examples there: manager orientation
enhancements, manager training, leadership coaching, building effective teams,
mentorship programs. And then also, you know, something that comes up sometimes
is interdepartmental-type issues, and so again helping them with effective
teamwork.
I would also just highlight
paid compensation is a factor at times as well as culture factors. So
addressing that is leadership essentials training; crucial conversations
training, so how do we have those crucial conversations; building effective
teams again; our belonging, diversity, and inclusion work to make sure that
everyone’s feeling like they belong to the team; our anti-racism training and
Indigenous employee network that I spoke about earlier.
And we’ve also got a
recognition tool kit to identify ways of how can you recognize people best, and
just ideas, right. So I’d pause there.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Where are the performance measures such as vacancy trends, recruitment
outcomes, staffing levels by classification and location reported? Is this
report going to be publicly available?
[15:15]
Mike Northcott:
— Okay, so the detailed aspects of that are tracked internally. And we work
closely with the ministry around that, so my team as well as the ministry team
on the more detailed reports. As I indicated before, we report the vacancy
rates to the board committee on a quarterly basis. And then I would also
highlight that in the public portion of the board meeting, Andrew speaks to
those high-level numbers that I gave as well in the public portion.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Would you be able to tell me like general trends over the past four years of
what your vacancy trends are, what your recruitment outcomes have been, and
what your staffing levels by classification and location have been, and
retention rates once they’ve been recruited? Or furnish them to the committee
if that takes like far too long to do right now.
Mike
Northcott: —
Can you repeat that question. Sorry.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Sure. Over the past four years: vacancy trends, recruitment outcomes, staffing
levels by classification and location — and I’m thinking regionally if we could
go back to the different regions — and the last one, retention rates once new
people have been recruited in these past four. I think four years would be what
we could use.
Mike Northcott:
— Okay, so what you’ve asked for would be a major undertaking. What we can do
is go back and we’d look at the nine classifications that are under the rural
and remote incentives and provide you with recruitment trends there.
In terms of the vacancy
trends, I’d kind of go back to the numbers that I shared earlier. That was the
last three years. I know you’d asked for four years, but that trend is
definitely improving and we’re seeing significant gains there, which we’re very
happy about. And there’s more work to do in that space because even if we’re,
you know, around that 2 per cent vacancy, there’s still vacancies there that we
want to fill in order to serve patients. Yeah, I’ll leave it at that.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And the retention rates once recruited?
Mike Northcott:
— Yeah, we’ve seen generally fairly stable retention rates actually.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Percentage, like 90? 80?
Mike
Northcott: — Give me a second. So I
think what we can do is with those nine classifications we can also just build
in that retention component with people fulfilling their obligations there.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank
you. And you’ll just send that to the committee along with the other things?
Mike
Northcott: — If that works for the
committee, we can.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay,
thanks.
Chair Wotherspoon:
— Just sort of, yeah, standard process. That sounds wonderful. Thanks for
confirming that you’ll supply that information and the Clerk will make sure you
have the path to get that to the committee. Thank you very much.
Norman
O’Neill: — We’ll just follow the
same timeline then as our other deliverables. Okay.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — That’s right. So far it
sounds like everything’s a 30‑day window, so you can send it all at once
or as it’s available.
Norman O’Neill:
— Yeah, we might have one 60‑day, don’t we?
Chair
Wotherspoon: — We’re going to shorten
that timeline. No, that sounds great. Thank you.
Any further questions,
committee members? Good questions and substantive exchange. Thanks to the
officials for all their work, their teams, on this front as well. Not seeing
any further questions on this chapter, I’d welcome a motion to conclude
consideration of chapter 24.
James
Thorsteinson: —
So moved.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Moved by Deputy Chair
Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. We’ll
move right along to our last consideration of the day, that being chapter 25.
And I’ll turn it over to the Provincial Auditor and her office.
Jason Wandy:
— Thank you, Mr. Chair. Managing employee absenteeism is a key aspect to
controlling the costs of delivering health care in Saskatchewan and supports
employee well-being.
Chapter 25 of our 2025 report
volume 2 describes our third follow-up audit of management’s actions on the
three remaining recommendations we first made in 2017 regarding the
Saskatchewan Health Authority’s processes for minimizing employee absenteeism
in Kindersley and surrounding areas.
By April 2025 the Authority
continued to work on the three outstanding recommendations. In 2024‑25
the Authority experienced higher sick time per employee than in 2018‑19
by 23 per cent. The Authority partially implemented the recommendation on page
244 where we recommended the Saskatchewan Health Authority monitor that those
responsible for employee attendance management document discussions and actions
with employees who have excessive absenteeism.
In August 2023 the Authority
established a new threshold for managers to identify and monitor employees with
excessive absenteeism, that being when an employee’s sick hours exceed 10 per
cent of their scheduled hours. Between April 2024 and March 2025 we found about
25 per cent of the Authority’s employees in Kindersley and surrounding areas
had sick leave exceeding the target threshold.
We found the Authority
provides managers with ad hoc reports — that is attendance reports or calendars
— to monitor employees with excessive absenteeism. It expects managers to meet
with employees with excessive absenteeism and document their discussions in a
checklist. We tested five employees’ records with excessive absenteeism and
found no evidence of managers monitoring or documenting discussions about
excessive absenteeism.
Additionally, the Authority
indicated it was working toward implementing a process in 2026 for an IT
ticketing system to help managers track and document actions for addressing
employees with excessive absenteeism. Without proper records, managers cannot
demonstrate how or whether they determine the reasons for identified absences
of employees with excessive absenteeism. Doing so can assist in understanding
significant causes for employee absenteeism.
The Authority partially
implemented the two recommendations on pages 245 and 246 where we recommended
the Saskatchewan Health Authority analyze significant causes of its employees’
absenteeism and implement targeted strategies to address them, and give the
board periodic reports on the progress of attendance management strategies in
reducing employee absenteeism and related costs.
The Authority manually
collects data on reasons for employee absenteeism when managers meet with
employees. However as previously described, these meetings are not always held
and therefore absenteeism data collected by the Authority may not be sufficiently
complete. Authority management uses this data to produce annual summary reports
about the primary causes for absenteeism for the board’s human resources and
governance committee.
In the rural areas, which
includes Kindersley and surrounding areas, employees cited physical health as
the most common reason for absenteeism. Since 2023, the Authority continues to
offer educational resources and information packages to employees, but has not
monitored whether these resources successfully reduce employee absenteeism or
whether it requires additional targeted strategies.
We assessed the reports
provided to the board’s human resources and governance committee in September
2023 and 2024. We found the reports contained details about the main causes of
absenteeism but did not discuss trends or patterns or targets, nor did the
reports convey strategies the Authority is taking to reduce employee
absenteeism.
Collecting and analyzing
necessary data on causes of absenteeism would assist in developing and
evaluating attendance management strategies to reduce excessive employee
absenteeism. Reporting that includes reliable data assessing key causes and
strategies would help the board understand whether the Authority is effectively
reducing employee absenteeism and whether additional changes and strategies are
necessary.
I’ll now pause for the
committee’s consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thanks for the focus and
the follow-up on this front. I’ll turn it over to ADM O’Neill for a brief
remark and then we’ll kick it open for questions.
Norman
O’Neill: —
Thank you. So regarding the recommendation for the SHA to monitor those
responsible for employee attendance management, to document discussions and
actions, the SHA has implemented the attendance support program.
[15:30]
This includes attendance
records, calendars, and structured discussion checklists to guide managers in
addressing excessive absenteeism. Managers are expected to meet with employees
who have excessive absenteeism and document contributing factors, supports, and
action plans.
The SHA has issued a request
for proposals for a vendor to provide attendance and return-to-work services.
The service model will introduce centralized end-to-end case management, a
responsibility for documentation, communication, medical follow-up, and return-to-work
planning is coordinated through a standardized approach. The service sought
through the request for proposals includes documentation of discussions and
actions with employees who have excessive absenteeism.
Surrounding the
recommendation for the SHA to analyze significant causes of its employees’
absenteeism and implement strategies, the SHA continues to collect absenteeism
information. The SHA collects absenteeism data through attendance discussions
and reporting processes, identifying mental health, physical health,
family-related responsibilities, chronic disease, and addictions and substance
abuse as primary drivers.
When an external service is
procured and onboarded, improvements to data quality and analytical capability
will occur through the standardization of data collection and absence
information across the organization. This will enable more reliable identification
of trends and root causes, including by location and employee group.
Planned analytics
enhancements will support targeted early intervention and prevention
strategies, improve employee wellness outcomes, and contribute to reduced
absence duration and improved continuity of care.
Concerning the recommendation
for the SHA to give the board periodic reports on the progress of attendance
management strategies, the SHA currently provides summary reporting on
absenteeism trends and key drivers to the board’s human resources and
governance committee.
Through the implementation of
the vendor-supported model, SHA will introduce performance-based reporting with
defined metrics. Enhanced reporting will include regular updates on attendance
trends, drivers, and progress on attendance management strategies. This will
strengthen governance oversight, improve transparency, and support
evidence-based decision making, including demonstrating return on investment
through measurable reductions in absenteeism-related costs.
That concludes my comments.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. Thank you. I’ll
open it up now to committee members that may have questions. MLA Gordon.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. Can you share with the committee today if the pilot for the
integrated vendor-supported case management and documentation system has begun?
And if it has, does it still remain on track for full implementation by end of
this year?
Mike Northcott:
— So we are in the final stages working towards awarding that contract. So that
pilot that you referenced has not started yet because the contract isn’t signed
off. But we’re planning to have that pilot begin over the summer.
Hugh
Gordon: —
And can you just share with the committee, like what do you mean by
vendor-supported case management and documentation? What does that entail? What
does that look like for you?
Mike Northcott:
— Yeah, so we’re looking for a vendor that has that infrastructure to then be
. . . So they’d be dealing with the cases, but they’d also have the
infrastructure where they’d be documenting those conversations and processes.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. Takes care of my question number three.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Pratchler.
Joan
Pratchler: —
Thanks. So does that mean that the managers aren’t involved in this? Is this an
outsourcing of absenteeism management? Or maybe I’m missing something.
Mike Northcott:
— We’re working through the details of exactly who does what, but at the end of
the day, we do want to reduce the administrative pieces on the managers. But
the managers are still the employees’ managers, so they have a role in this. So
we’re just working through the details of exactly where that interplay and
hand-off . . . and I shouldn’t say hand-off, but the roles and
responsibilities within that. We’re just working through the detail on that.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And you’ve already set up how you might evaluate that periodically as it goes
through? Is it just a pilot now? Or how do you know if it’s going to work?
Mike Northcott:
— Yeah, I would more frame it around . . . We would do a first
implementation with a smaller geographic area, and then we would evaluate it.
So that’s part of what we’re doing now is around what are those key performance
indicators to measure success. And then as with anything, I think we’re going
to see lessons learned and what can we improve upon that for the next
implementation as we go through the province.
Joan
Pratchler: —
So the vendors that you’re reviewing would already have some of those
performance indicators in mind? Or we’re going to make . . .
Mike Northcott:
— Yeah, so it’s a bit of back-and-forth, right?
Joan
Pratchler: —
Okay.
Mike Northcott:
— Because the vendors, they do this as a business. So they have key performance
indicators, so they would share those with us. And then we’re looking at it to
say, okay, are there any missing that we feel are important? So it’s a little
bit of back-and-forth on that.
Joan
Pratchler: —
And you’re still looking for that one vendor? You’re still sorting through a
variety of vendors?
Mike Northcott:
— So we have had a number of vendors come forward with proposals. We are in the
final stages of that process. And just given the procurement rules, I just want
to be respectful of not saying anything out of turn within the procurement
process.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you. So in ’24‑25
the SHA spent $234 million province-wide on employee overtime, including
74 million in Kindersley and surrounding area. That’s a quarter of all the
overtime spent in the entire province. Are you able to track what would be
other large outlays of overtime paid by region? So if Kindersley spent
one-third of it, the other two-thirds, how would we account for that, just in
rough packages?
Norman
O’Neill:
— Can you help us find where you’re seeing the reference?
Joan Pratchler: — I’m sorry. Can you say that
again?
Norman
O’Neill:
— Can you help us find where you’re seeing the reference in the report that
you’re talking about the 75?
Joan Pratchler: — 74 million in
Kindersley?
Norman
O’Neill:
— 74 million? Yeah.
Joan Pratchler: — Yeah, I assume it was in
here. I just wrote it down. I’d have to look at what page that was, but
234 million province-wide.
Norman
O’Neill:
— That’s probably more within what we would expect. But the 74 within
Kindersley, it seems very high to us.
Joan Pratchler: — Let’s see. Two
. . . 244.
Norman
O’Neill:
— Okay, we found it. Thank you.
Joan Pratchler: — You did? Okay, thanks.
Mike
Northcott:
— Okay, so the 74 million, we’ve given that some thought, and you probably
read it on our faces that it didn’t seem quite right coming out of the gates.
Just the context is the former Heartland would’ve had about 1,000 employees. So
the 74 million in that context doesn’t quite jive, yeah.
Tara
Clemett:
— And that number is our number, so I would be the one who would have to
. . . We would have source documentation to figure out where we got
that from. And I probably have to circulate it potentially back to them, to
then . . . They’d have to understand what that . . . But I
agree. That number seems . . .
A
Member:
— It does seem odd, right?
Mike
Northcott:
— Yeah.
Tara
Clemett:
— Yeah, just based on our . . . It seems high because . . .
Yeah. And we think about even, like . . . or just . . .
Andrew
Will:
— I’m on my way right after this.
Tara
Clemett:
— Okay.
Mike
Northcott:
— But I can give more context around overtime. So we have created a dashboard
using the AIMS system. So basically it goes right from the high level. So
there’s an overall SHA report that shows, okay, here’s the overtime used;
here’s what was used previously. And then it drills into each portfolio.
[15:45]
So
for myself, I can either see at the overall organization level, I can see at my
department level, or I can see other portfolios and drill right down. So we’re
using that so that leaders can make great decisions every day and really have
that visible. And really where we see those high areas of overtime, doing
wraparound support to understand what is the root cause of that and how do we
problem solve to address that root cause.
Joan Pratchler: — So however that flow through
works — let’s just say it’s 74 million — would you be able to explain why
that happened, and then talk about what the other large . . . There’s
always going to be overtime. I’m not questioning that at all. But when a third
of it is in one place, is another third in another place? So when that all
comes back, can you just flesh that out so we, you know, can sleep at night?
Mike
Northcott:
— So overtime is a focus for us this year. And we know that it puts a burden on
staff when they have to work more hours and also impacts patient care if staff
are, you know, extended. So when I look at the numbers — and going back to your
question around is there other pockets — given this focus that we’ve had on
overtime, I’ve looked across. So I can’t recite all the numbers to you, but
what I can say is that overtime is spread right throughout the geographies.
There isn’t a cluster.
Of
course there’s higher areas than others. But that’s where — as I said before,
identifying those higher numbers and doing that wraparound support — as we get
further down the road with that analysis, we’ll have more of those root causes
that we’d be able to share, you know, further down the road at subsequent
discussions. So that’s the context on that.
Joan Pratchler: — And there’s one more that
may well relate to that is that, now that you’re able to procure people to be
in vacancies and that vacancy rate is being reduced, do you see yourself
reducing the amount of travel nurses’ contracts as well, now that you can get
more stable nursing?
Mike
Northcott:
— So we have seen significant decreases in the utilization of contract nurses
over the past few years, so approximately 30 per cent or more each of the past
number of years.
A
next step on that for us is really looking at that relationship. We’ve seen the
contract nursing really come down. Our overtime keeps increasing and we want to
see that decrease, so we really need to look at that relationship. And as you
said, you know, sometimes overtime is going to happen. So it is a matter of
ensuring that we have the staff there for patient care to provide the care,
right, but really understanding what those drivers are.
And
you’re right. As we’ve seen those vacancy rates come down, we’re expecting
. . . And that’s a big driver of the reduction of contract nurses,
right, especially with the Philippines recruitment and the incentives. But as
we go forward, we need to monitor both that usage as well as the overtime.
Joan Pratchler: — Has someone . . .
Perhaps you have. What is the impact or the inter-relationalities between the
contract nurses or the impact of contract on your regular nursing staff? Has
somebody researched that or are they in the process of researching? Because
there’s something going on there that’s interesting, I would think.
Mike
Northcott:
— Yeah, we have further work to do on a deep dive on that.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay. And that will be a
report, or how do you see that ending?
Mike
Northcott:
— There will be an analysis. I’m not sure what form that will take, but there
will be an analysis on that.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay.
Tara
Clemett:
— So I will just mention that our office did complete an audit with regards to
travel nurses, and that will be released at the end of June.
Joan Pratchler: — Okay, good. Thank you.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: —
Sure, maybe follow up on rates of overtime if you could discuss what those look
like in the Kindersley area. We know they’ve got an absenteeism rate of 25 per
cent. Just wondering if you could make a comment on the rate of overtime in
that area.
And then what are the
strategies you’ve identified to reduce the use of overtime and absenteeism? You
know, we have heard that you’re phasing out contract nurses and maybe cracking
down on overtime and you want to see a more healthier balance. Perhaps you
could insight us on that.
Andrew Will:
— So I might share — just again thank you for that question — a few kind of
overarching comments on the overtime piece, and then maybe turn it over to Mike
to speak more about locally what are we doing to support management of
overtime.
And I would just say
certainly one of the things that’s very important is that we have continuity of
care, that we don’t have interruptions in services. That’s a priority for us.
In health care we definitely see fluctuations in terms of the volumes of patients
that have come to hospitals, etc. So sometimes overtime is necessary to be able
to ensure the care that patients need.
So you know, I think at the
end of the day we want to see our managers making really good decisions about
when is it appropriate that overtime is used. As Mike said earlier, we also
know that overtime takes a toll on people and sometimes the hours can be
excessive, and that can create risks and safety issues and retention issues for
people as well. So we’re very mindful of overtime.
We made a comment a moment or
so ago just in terms of, okay, in those exceptional circumstances where we need
to have additional staffing and have that filled, finding the right balance
between, you know, when do we contract staff and when do we authorize overtime.
Those are things that we need to really dig into and understand.
I will say there’s so many
things right now that I expect will help us address some of the overtime
challenges. Certainly the improvement we’ve seen in reducing vacancies in the
system should have a very significant impact for us. We spoke moments ago about
the attendance management return-to-work program and the contract that we’re
going to be putting into place. I think that also will have a very positive
impact on, you know, having staff healthy and at work and providing care.
In rural areas one of the
initiatives that we did over the past couple years is some supernumerary
staffing, where we’ve increased above the baseline staffing so that if we do
have an absence, we’re not, you know, kind of immediately in trouble where we’re
into an overtime situation. And we’ve seen that has helped us even in terms of
retention of staff in those facilities.
So there’s lots of things
under way, but we’re still — and we’ll acknowledge — we’re still seeing
overtime as a challenge for us. This will be a priority as we head into this
year. Mike will speak a little bit. We’re putting some processes in place for managers
to make overtime more visible at every level of the organization, including at
the manager level. We will be encouraging all of those leaders to really dig in
and understand what is the root cause. Is it because of patient volume and
load? Is it because of an unexpected absence that caused a challenge?
So I expect that, you know,
every situation is going to be a little bit different. And then we’ll support
our leaders to really work on whatever the root cause is that relates to their
unit or the service that they’re delivering.
So as I mentioned, this will
be one of our key focuses as the Saskatchewan Health Authority as we head
through this year, and we’ve developed some processes to be able to support our
leaders to do that.
Mike, anything that you would
add to that?
Mike Northcott:
— Yeah. Just a little more detail in terms of the processes that we’ve put in
place to support. And I would just highlight the improvement huddle. So this is
where we’ve identified the top areas in each portfolio, and then we have what
we call an improvement huddle where basically we’re bringing that data to the
table. We’re bringing the operational leaders. We’re bringing quality
improvement, finance, and human resources around that table to dive into, okay,
what’s really going on here to get to those root causes? And then collectively,
okay, what can we do to address those root causes, to address the issue?
Joan
Pratchler: —
And so do you have a way of evaluating that or kind of following that? Like I
assume this is a process that’s going to continue for a fair amount of time to
be able to see it through. What are you looking at for evaluating or reporting
back progress?
Mike Northcott:
— Yeah. It’s ultimately, what’s the overtime utilization? That’s our key metric
in this space, and that goes back to the dashboard that I referenced earlier.
So we want to see that curve, the direction go the other way, right? We want to
see a decrease. And so you want to see that at not only the overall, but each
individual right down to the individual unit level, right?
Joan
Pratchler: —
Yeah. That makes sense. That’s all I have.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon? Any further
questions from committee members? Not seeing any, I would welcome a motion to
conclude consideration of chapter 25 at this time.
James
Thorsteinson: —
I so move.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Moved by Deputy Chair
Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. That’s carried. So
that concludes the chapters that we have before us here today. I just want to
thank ADM O’Neill, CEO Will, all the leadership that have joined us here today,
the many others that have connected to this work and contributed to the work
that’s been discussed. Of course I thank the auditor and her team as well. But
to ADM O’Neill, any final parting words before we kick you out of here?
Norman O’Neill:
— Happy to be kicked out, but I’ll also just thank the Provincial Auditor for
the work that they’ve done and our positive working relationship. I’ll thank
the committee for their thoughtful questions. And of course I’ll thank the
officials as well who provided the answers today. Thanks again.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Excellent. Well thank you
very much. I guess there’s one last item I’d like to address here today, and
that’s the fact that we have someone at our table that’s been with us and
contributing in a really meaningful way for a long time that won’t be with us
again into the future. And Jane Borland, assistant provincial comptroller, is
going to be retiring.
[16:00]
So I know I’ve chatted a
little bit with our Provincial Comptroller, and just a few highlights here.
Jane has served her province exceptionally well for 38 years with the
Government of Saskatchewan, and she’s made incredibly valuable contributions.
And those have included, she’s helped strengthen the preparation of the public
accounts, ensuring the high-quality public statements and timeliness of
reporting. During periods of change, Jane provided guidance and supported the
transition to GEM [government enterprise management], the adoption of accrual
accounting, and the rewrite of The Financial Administration Act. She’s
also provided exceptional leadership in financial reporting, accounting policy,
and public-sector accounting.
Now I understand that Jane
loves to travel. I believe she’s travelled to over 50 countries around the
world, which is just awesome, and plans to travel extensively into retirement.
So to Jane Borland, on behalf of the Public Accounts Committee and I know a
grateful province, we simply want to express our thanks to you for your remarkable
career and your service to your province. And we want to wish you nothing but
the best and many adventures in your retirement.
Jane Borland:
— Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, folks. Oh yeah, we
can . . . I think we should give her a standing ovation. Thank you
very much, Jane.
[Applause]
Jane Borland:
— Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Am I missing anything
else? All right, well I’d welcome a motion of adjournment at this time. It’s
always the most popular motion. Yeah, moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. This committee
stands adjourned until the call of the Chair.
[The committee adjourned at 16:02.]
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