It has been a successful year for recruitment at Horizon Health, according to the health authority’s chief human resources officer.
Vice-President Gail Lebel provided an update on recruitment efforts to Horizon’s board of directors last week.
Lebel said they welcomed 172 new physicians between April 2024 and February 2025, including 34 family medicine physicians.
“The net new in this category is 125. And so the net new comes from the exits that are subtracted from the total number of people who are hired in this category,” said Lebel.
“So 172 is a big number for us and certainly a significant increase from the previous year.”
The health authority is on track to surpass the 178 physicians it hired during the previous fiscal year.
Hundreds of new nursing staff added
From a nursing standpoint, Lebel said Horizon has hired 1,276 nursing staff as of the end of February, which includes 510 registered nurses (RNs).
“Although we haven’t met our very aggressive goal in this area, we’ve still hired a lot of new RNs into our system, and we’re very proud of our recruitment team for doing so because it is a big war for talent in this domain,” she said.
Horizon Health had set a goal of hiring 663 registered nurses during the 2024-25 fiscal year.
When you take into account the number of exits, the health authority saw a net increase of 640 nursing staff, which also includes licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and patient care attendants (PCAs).
Elsewhere, Horizon also hired 286 allied health professionals for a net increase of 89. It includes psychologists, social workers, physiotherapists, pharmacists and radiation therapists.
Retention levels
Lebel also highlighted the health authority’s voluntary turnover rate, which stands at 7.8 per cent. That is compared to the Canadian national average of 15 per cent.
Absenteeism also fell slightly to 8.65 per cent while paid sick days fell to 12 days, she added.
In addition, a recent survey found 82 per cent of employees intend to stay at Horizon, which is one point higher than the national average.
“We’re very, very proud of this number, and we need to keep that up because that’s a real key indication of the retention within Horizon,” said Lebel.
