The key issues examined in this theme will include the impacts of, for example, new models of care delivery, evolving Health Workforce (HWF) education practices, and changing population health needs on the supply of and requirements for HWF. This theme will also leverage, facilitate access to and link existing HWF planning and modeling data resources to help better address modeling/planning projections and engage with stakeholders to enhance understanding of needs-based approaches to HWF planning. These activities are well-aligned with the mandate of the Dalhousie University/WHO Collaborating Centre to build local and global capacity to support needs-based HWF planning.

Featured Research: 

In 2017, Ontario Health Toronto partnered with the Canadian Health Workforce Network (CHWN) to co-develop an integrated planning process to support evidence-based workforce decision-making for the region.  The result of the collaboration is a health workforce planning toolkit that incorporates planning processes, environmental scanning tools, and a quantitative model. 

The outputs of the toolkit provide a body of evidence around the current (and projected future) states of population health needs and primary care service provision at a neighbourhood level within the City of Toronto.  The planning process estimates population needs and workforce capacity at the neighbourhood, sub-region, and whole city levels.  It takes into account variations in population needs, workforce service capacity, and existing assets, and also addresses challenges specific to Toronto, such as patient mobility, anticipated rapid population growth, and physician retirement.

Outputs are available through the Ontario Community Health Profiles Partnership (http://www.ontariohealthprofiles.ca).

This toolkit helps providers, planners, and stakeholders understand more about the patients they are serving and generates an estimate of the primary care resources needed in communities across the City of Toronto.  The planning process also helps to identify future emerging primary care needs, taking into account population growth, demographic shifts, provider retirement, and changing practice patterns.  And finally, the toolkit can inform strategies to transform care by facilitating the testing of a range of relevant scenarios.

Health Workforce Research in Progress: 

Crisis underscores that health workers are backbone of health system

Poor health workforce planning is costly, risky and inequitable

Health Workforce Planning to Promote Equitable Access to the Full Range of Maternity Care Providers Across the Champlain Region

Moving beyond headcounts: improved physician workforce planning for primary care in BC

Theme Leads:

Sarah Simkin | Family Physician; MS in Health Systems Management - University of Ottawa

Lindsay Hedden | Assistant Professor - Simon Fraser University; Associate Scientific Director - University Health Sciences Network of British Columbia