Tools & resources
Find information & resources to empower your work at Providence.
The following resources are designed to help British Columbia health care professionals conduct their practice.
Professional practice
The Professional Practice Office is accountable for ensuring evidence-based practice standards are in place to support and guide nursing and allied health disciplines in providing safe, quality, person, and family-centred care.
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.
- Core Competencies for Emergency Cardiac Care
- Emergency Cardiac Care Decision Support Tool 1
- Emergency Cardiac Care Decision Support Tool 2
- Emergency Cardiac Care Decision Support Tool 3
- Infographic: Summary of DST #1 (cardiac monitoring, defibrillation, cardiac drugs NOT available)
- Infographic: Summary of DST #2 (cardiac monitoring, defibrillation, cardiac drugs AVAILABLE)
- Infographic: Summary of DST #3 (patients with chest pain/discomfort suggestive of acute coronary syndrome)
Interprofessional long-term care teams
A team at Providence created resources to help long-term care (LTC) health care providers manage workplace stress and emotional challenges related to resident deaths. The team led three consecutive research projects to study current practices and develop tools to support interdisciplinary care teams.
Clinical Informatics
At Providence Health Care, Clinical Informatics professionals help ensure that information technologies used in care delivery are configured and deployed safely, sustainably and in ways that provide maximum value to staff, patients and families.
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.
Consolidated services
Lower Mainland Biomedical Engineering
Patient Health Education Materials (PHEM)
Patient Health Education Materials (or PHEM) are documents used to inform patients, residents, caregivers, and family members about a variety of health topics. You can search for education materials by title, category or catalogue number. Translated versions of some materials are also available.
PHEM Committee
The PHEM committee is a group of health care professionals and patient/family partners. They meet monthly to review materials used by patients, residents and families at Providence Health Care. The committee aims to ensure documents are relevant, clear, and understandable.
Media production services
Media Services at Providence Health Care provides media production services in support of all aspects of health care at Providence Health Care and affiliated health care organizations.
Last reviewed: March 14, 2025