Interoperability Is Also a Health Workforce Planning Issue

By Dax Bourcier | June, 2026

The problem is not only that health workforce data are missing; it is that the data describing who receives care, who provides it, what services are delivered, and what outcomes follow do not reliably connect.

Across Canada, health care data is being generated every second: who receives care, who provides it, what service is delivered, where and when it happens, and what outcomes follow. These data are essential for understanding whether the health workforce is aligned with population needs. Yet in practice, they often remain fragmented across organizations, professions, sectors, software systems, and jurisdictions.

The result is a familiar problem. Decision-makers need timely answers to urgent planning questions, but the data needed to answer them are incomplete, delayed, difficult to link, or not comparable across settings. Where are shortages emerging? Which communities are underserved? How are models of care changing? How can recurring bad outcomes be prevented? Are health providers working at their best potential? Are we training and retaining the right mix of providers? These questions cannot be answered well when health data remain trapped in disconnected systems.

To address this gap, my colleague Dr. Sarah Simkin and I developed a data architecture framework. As shown in the accompanying overview figure below, and in previous presentations, the framework is built around four connected functions: data ingestion, data integration, data storage, and fit-for-purpose use. The central argument is that health care delivery generates four foundational data streams: patient data, health care provider data, health service data, and outcomes data. For workforce planning, the value comes from linking these streams together.

This is why interoperability matters.

Interoperability is often discussed in relation to patient care, and rightly so. Patients and providers need health information to move securely across care settings. But interoperability is also a planning issue. To understand the health workforce, we need more than counts of providers. We need to know what care is being delivered, by whom, to whom, where, when, how, and with what outcomes. In other words, workforce planning requires data that capture the full health care delivery process.

The framework argues that this can only happen when raw data are converted into clean, standardized, linkable data. Minimum data standards, unique identifiers, shared terminology, and common data standards such as FHIR are not technical details alone. They are the infrastructure that allows patient, provider, service, and outcomes data to be connected in a way that supports real planning.

Bill S-5, the proposed Connected Care for Canadians Act, is therefore highly relevant. By focusing on interoperability of health information technology and the prohibition of data blocking by vendors, the bill could help create some of the conditions needed for better health data flow in Canada. It could move the system away from local workarounds and toward more consistent expectations for secure data exchange. However, for the full promise of interoperability to be realized, health workforce planning needs to be considered explicitly within this policy agenda. Health workforce data should not be treated as separate from health data. Provider, service, encounter, setting, time, location, and outcomes information are all part of understanding how care is delivered. This does not mean creating uncontrolled access to sensitive information. Strong governance, privacy protections, data sovereignty, secure access, and clear authorization remain essential. But it does mean designing interoperability with planning in mind from the outset.

If interoperability policy focuses only on moving clinical information between systems, Canada may improve connected care while leaving connected planning behind. That would be a missed opportunity. A modern health data ecosystem should support care at the bedside and decision-making at the system level. It should help patients access their information, help providers deliver safer care, and help planners understand whether the workforce is meeting population needs.

The data architecture framework provides a blueprint for this broader vision. Bill S-5 could help enable it. The next step is ensuring that health workforce planning data are part of Canada’s interoperability conversation from the beginning.

Disclosure: This entry was drafted by Dr. Dax Bourcier with the assistance of a closed-model AI to ensure grammar and flow. The concepts, data architecture, and overall content of this blog were developed collaboratively by Dr. Dax Bourcier and Dr. Sarah Simkin, CHWN Co-Leads of our Health Workforce Planning theme, without the use of AI.