SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The success of a website launched back in June – designed to attract health care professionals to the North – will not be known for about a month, due to a three month application-to-hiring process.

Dana Heide, assistant deputy minister of Health and Social Services, said he believed the vacancy rates for health care professionals in the NWT remained as they were back in June, at 18 to 21 per cent, but this could not be confirmed by the department before press time.

"We would just now be getting to the interview and screening stage, so we know if they're appropriate applicants," he said.

However, while the effectiveness of the website, which cost $110,000 to create, is not yet know, Heide said there have been plenty of positive signs.

"It's attracted about six and a half times as many visitors to the site compared to the old website," he said.

He said in August the site experienced nearly 1,000 hits from people looking for work, and people are now spending more time on the new website than they were on old one.

"So there are more people there (on the website). They're looking at what we're offering in the North and what practising variety of professions there are in the North. So it's quite good," he said.

Damien Healy, manager of communications with the health department, said visitors to the old site were spending around one and a half minutes on the site.

The new site averages visitations of three minutes and 34 seconds, with returning visitors spending an average of nearly six minutes on the site, he said.

"(It's) really good news for us. We're finding people are looking at it for longer and people are actually coming back and looking for longer," said Healy.

One of the original purposes of the new website was to move the department's recruitment strategies away from traditional outlets such as print and medical journals, and toward online measures.

However, Healy said the old advertising outlets are still being used, but to a lesser extent, "just in case we miss those targets that aren't wired into the web."

He said the website was also being used to conduct research into the best ways to advertise for health care professionals in the future.

"What we're finding for health care professionals … this (the Internet) is how they want to be told about information and this is where they want to go."

Heide said the need for various health care specialities changes often, but right now there are several areas that are in desperate need.

"Currently we have a real need, obviously for nurses and physicians outside of Yellowknife, but we're also having a real tough time currently recruiting PTs (physical therapists), and social workers," he said.