TRU student brings B.C. health care crisis to global stage
Jenna Sims, a Bachelor of Health Science student minoring in business leadership at Thompson Rivers University (TRU), will represent Canada on the global stage at the University of Oxford in England, following her success at the national Map the System (MTS) competition.
Sims, a former physical therapy assistant, presented her research on the root causes of British Columbia’s primary care crisis at the MTS national finals in Banff, Alberta, where she received a travel grant to attend the international competition in Oxford, as well as an Apprenticing with a Problem grant to further her research.
Map the System is a global competition hosted by Oxford’s Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. The competition challenges post-secondary students to investigate and analyze systemic social and environmental issues.
Sims began her journey in health care following her own experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Burnt out from her job, she went back to school, enrolling at TRU in 2022. That winter, while suffering from severe bronchitis, she experienced gaps in B.C.’s primary care system — a turning point for her.
“I had to call repeatedly for three exhausting days just to get a phone appointment with a doctor,” she says. “This experience really shook me, and it made me wonder how and why our primary care system had deteriorated so badly.”
Motivated by her experience, Sims began volunteering with BC Health Care Matters, a grassroots advocacy organization. During her time there, she undertook research to examine the province’s diminishing access to family doctors more deeply.
In 2024, she conducted 11 semi-structured interviews with physicians, health-care administrators, patients and advocates to gain insights into systemic issues within the health-care system. She turned six of these interviews into an educational podcast series titled “Your Health Care Matters.”
Her project identifies systemic root causes, rejecting quick policy “band-aid” solutions in favour of long-term structural changes.
“We are in the midst of a primary care crisis,” says Sims. “One in five British Columbians doesn’t have access to a family doctor.”
A potential solution? Sims advocates for a province-wide shift toward team-based care models, a collaborative approach where doctors share responsibilities with other health-care professionals like nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, social workers, dieticians, medical office assistants and others.
“Team-based care reduces the administrative burden on physicians and lets them focus on their scope of practice,” she says. “This increases capacity and helps more patients get the care they need.”
Sims credits her entry in the Map the System competition to a creativity and innovation course taught by Dr. Cheryl Gladu, assistant professor at TRU’s Bob Gaglardi School of Business and Economics. The course introduced Sims to systems thinking, and the final project followed the MTS format. Her success in the course prompted her to compete in TRU’s local MTS competition, where she secured first place and advanced to the national finals.
“Map the System gives students the tools to develop a more complete and nuanced understanding of complex problems via systems thinking,” says Gladu, who was instrumental in bringing MTS to TRU. “It facilitates a rapid but deep understanding of issues and helps identify meaningful levers of change.”
With support from Gladu, Sims is now preparing for the international MTS showcase at Oxford, which will take place from July 3 to 6.
“I hope that together we can build a future where everyone has access to the care they need,” says Sims.