Your health matters – and that’s why it’s critical for Ontario to address the shortage of trained health professionals throughout our province as efficiently as possible. One way to do this is through better leveraging of the immense talent of Ontario’s internationally educated health professionals (IEHPs). Many immigrants to our province possess the necessary clinical and technical skills to help improve our healthcare system, but lack the appropriate communication competency to successfully navigate the cultural and linguistic demands of Ontario’s health network. 

The goal of the OCECCA Project, which concluded on October 31, 2013, was to investigate the feasibility of establishing a central hub that could provide communication competency assessments, as well as expert research and other testing services, for Ontario’s regulated health professions (e.g., nursing, radiology, pharmacy, optometry, occupational and physiotherapy, etc.). The goal of such a hub – the Ontario Centre of Excellence in Communication Competency Assessments (OCECCA) – would be to make communication assessment and training for IEHPs more objective and reliable, while also providing IEHPs with the tools they need to find gainful employment in their fields of expertise. And that would be good news – for our hospitals, our clinics, our communities, and our health.