Mentorship app helps retain nurses as Mississauga hospitals prepare for major expansion

As Ontario works to address a growing nursing shortage, a Mississauga hospital network is turning to technology to help keep healthcare workers on the job.

Trillium Health Partners has developed WeMentor+, a mentorship app that connects newer nurses and other healthcare professionals with experienced colleagues for career guidance, support and advice.

The concept is simple: users create profiles and are matched with mentors based on their interests, goals and professional backgrounds. Hospital leaders say the results have been significant.

“We realized after the pandemic that a lot of people were seeking mentorship,” said Farah Khan, senior vice-president of patient care services at Trillium Health Partners and one of the app’s creators.

Khan said the pandemic dramatically changed the health-care workforce. Many experienced nurses retired, changed careers or left the profession altogether, while hospitals welcomed large numbers of newly graduated and internationally educated nurses.

Farah Khan

At one point, she said, roughly half of Trillium Health Partners’ nursing workforce had less than five years of experience.

Many frontline health care workers felt the significant pressures placed on the sector during the pandemic. As the workforce shifted and we saw more early-career team members joining the organization, it became clear they needed better access to mentorship.

The challenge is particularly important as Ontario faces increasing demand for nurses. Provincial workforce projections estimate Ontario could be short more than 30,000 nurses by the end of the decade, prompting government investments in nursing education and training programs.

For Trillium Health Partners, the issue is especially pressing as it prepares for the construction of the Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital, a project billed as Canada’s largest hospital at the Queensway and Hurontario Street. The organization expects it will need to increase its workforce by more than 30 per cent over the next five to six years. Trillium Health Partners also serves Credit Valley Hospital and Queensway Health Centre in Etobicoke.

Khan and two colleagues in partnership with the Chief Nursing Executive and Executive Vice-President Terri Irwin, developed the idea for WeMentor+ and successfully applied for seed funding through the Registered Nurses’ Foundation of Ontario’s Nurse Innovator Award. The project received $50,000, the largest award ever granted through the program. Additional support came from the CAN Health Network, allowing the team to develop and pilot the platform.

Now in operation for about two years, the app has grown to approximately 700 active users.

According to Trillium Health Partners, turnover among nurses participating in the pilot program fell from nearly 18 per cent in the first year to about nine per cent in the second year — a reduction of almost half.

While the numbers are encouraging, Khan said the personal stories behind them are equally important.

She recalls being matched through the app with a nurse who aspired to move into a leadership role but lacked confidence in her abilities.

“We had multiple mentorship conversations,” Khan said. “Today she’s an educator in one of our specialized care units.”

The app allows users to connect with mentors, access educational resources and seek advice on everything from clinical questions to long-term career planning.

Khan believes one of the platform’s strengths is that it makes mentorship more inclusive, and less intimidating, particularly for younger staff and internationally educated health professionals.

“Sometimes people just want to ask somebody, ‘Am I doing this right?’ or talk about where they want their career to go,” she said.

The hospital network is now expanding the platform beyond nursing to include a broader range of health-care professionals. Future plans are considering to include extending access to physicians and they are actively sharing their successes and connections with MentorCity, the technology platform, with other organizations across Ontario and beyond.

Trillium Health Partners has already presented the concept at provincial and national levels, and even at an international nursing conference in Finland, and plans to showcase it again at the Canadian Nurses Association Congress in Winnipeg later this year.

For Khan, the app represents more than a technology project.

“Our strategy is really anchored on our people,” she said. “We want team members to feel valued, supported and connected. If we’re going to build the health-care workforce of the future, mentorship has to be part of that.”