Clinical tools & resources

Simulation program

The simulation program at Providence Health Care is dedicated to providing a variety of opportunities for our staff and students to practice their professional skills in a safe environment.

Emergency Cardiac Care: Provincial Guidelines and Tools for Registered Nurses

The Health Professions Act specifies the following restricted activities under Section 6, which means that a registered nurse, in the course of practising nursing, may carry out these actions without a physician's order.

(a) make a nursing diagnosis identifying a condition as the cause of the signs or symptoms of an individual;

(e) administer oxygen by inhalation

(j) apply electricity for the purpose of defibrillation in the course of emergency cardiac care

(l) in respect of a drug specified in Schedule 1 of the Drug Schedules Regulation, compound, dispense or administer the drug…for the purpose of treating cardiac dysrhythmia

(k) compound, dispense or administer by any method a drug specified in Schedule II of the Drug Schedules Regulation, B.C. Reg. 9/98...such as the following: sublingual nitroglycerin

The BC College of Nurses and Midwives names Providence Health Care as the expert agency that develops and maintains documents outlining both the required competencies for nurses to carry out these activities safely, and also decision support tools to assist registered nurses in these activities.  Follow the links below to view these revised (2021) documents.

Cardiac nurses & allied health professionals

Nurses from all over the country are interested in working with the teams in the Heart Centre. Why? They want to be part of a team that is internationally known and consistently on the cutting edge of advancements in cardiac care. And they want to experience the rich inter-professional environment at the Heart Centre. We offer a range of supportive initiatives for nurses to grow and develop as professionals:

• Provide support for our nurses to pursue post-graduate specialty education in critical care
• Monthly Heart Centre Nursing Rounds (webcast across Canada)

For further information regarding the Heart Centre Nursing Rounds at St. Paul's Hospital or to be added to the mailing list, please email our team.

Upcoming events

Clinical Informatics Competency Development

In 2022, members of the Providence Health Care Clinical Informatics team began a 2-year long knowledge translation project to improve competencies of practicing clinical informatics professionals in the organization. The project, titled Supporting Clinical Informatics Competency Development among Clinical Informatics Specialists at Providence Health Care, focused on improving competencies in three areas critical to clinical informatics practice at Providence including systems analysis, change management, and evaluation using data. 

Educational interventions corresponding to each component area were created and delivered to Providence Health Care Clinical Informatics team members in 2023; initial results showed a positive correlation between the delivery of all three educational interventions and team members’ self-report clinical informatics competence. A toolkit containing both a detailed project report as well as educational materials has been created and made available for download to support other health care organizations with improving clinical informatics competencies within their own clinical informatics departments.