Message from the Board Chair and CEO

It’s hard to believe that three years after COVID-19 was first identified in our province it is still having an impact. However, at Hearing and Speech Nova Scotia (HSNS), this past year has seen client and patient services back to pre-pandemic levels, and most of our strategic targets either completed or well on the way to being accomplished. 

The HSNS Annual Report for 2022-2023 gives updates across all three of the HSNS strategic themes for its Strategic Plan 2024: Accessibility, Communication, and Engagement. A critical area of attention for HSNS is accessing services. This past year we made improvements in reducing waitlists for children on two fronts: through improvements to hearing screening protocols and through collaboration on the Provincial Preschool Autism Service, which saw an increased number of children receiving services this year.    

Now into our third year delivering virtual care, a survey of the virtual care experience for both families and staff concluded that virtual care offers a valuable option for accessing some HSNS services for many clients. As patients became more comfortable with in-person visits, we experienced a decrease in the number of virtual care visits this year, but at close to 7,000 visits, it is still a significant number. Virtual care is here to stay for accessing many services for clients and families. 

Improvements in Accessibility to HSNS services also focused on the process for review and development of HSNS standards of clinical care. A collaboration of the HSNS Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Task Force and HSNS Standards and Audit Working Group was established to develop EDI principles to guide clinical practices.   

This year marked our second year implementing our Strategic Plan for 2021-24, which includes strategic goals for Communication. The Strategic Plan itself was created to be more accessible for members of our community by streamlining the language of our values, our strategic goals and our directions for growth. We continued our work on the strategic theme of “Communications” by providing more translated information to our clients and by improving our processes for developing resources with guidelines provided by the HSNS EDI Task Force. Promoting HSNS “Experience Stories” is a key aspect of our Communications Plan and, this year, five stories were shared on the HSNS website and social media platforms. In this annual report, we are including Ferne Mardlin-Smith’s story describing her recovery process following a stroke associated with severe Aphasia (communication difficulty related to brain injury). 

Our third strategic theme is Engagement and top of mind each year is recruiting qualified Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists from underrepresented communities in Nova Scotia. The Hearing and Speech Nova Scotia Scholars Award was established by the HSNS Board of Directors in 2020 to support students from underrepresented communities in pursuing their training in speech-language pathology or audiology. We would like to congratulate Morghan Manuel, the first recipient of the Hearing and Speech Scholars Endowment, who graduated with a Master of Science degree in speech-language pathology from Dalhousie University this spring. We are also thrilled to meet the second scholarship recipient, Frank Day, who finished his first year at the Dalhousie School of Communication Sciences and Disorders working on his Master of Science degree program in speech-language pathology.  

 As always, we would like to thank all members of our volunteer Board for their dedication and contributions to the community, with a special thank you to those who are retiring this year. 

Finally, on behalf of the entire Board, we would like to thank all our staff for the dedication, expertise, and creativity they bring to our clients every day. We know that the accomplishments of HSNS this year are the result of our outstanding staff. We would also like to thank our partners for their continued collaboration this year, including the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness, Nova Scotia Health, IWK Health, Dalhousie School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority, and Autism Nova Scotia. 

It is with your support that we can uphold our mission, which is to improve the lives of Nova Scotians by delivering quality audiology and speech-language pathology services. It is with great pride that we report on our accomplishments and hope you enjoy the stories presented in this annual report for 2022-2023. 

- Scott Barnett, Board Chair 

- Anne Mason Browne, CEO