The Enhanced Health Workforce Minimum Data Standard for Planning Project

What do we need to know about health workers so we can better plan for how they can meet the health care needs of the public?

In brief, we need consistent information on a range of health workers in Canada. It is remarkable that we do not yet have that. What our team of researchers and knowledge users want to create is a standard list of questions to ask of all health workers when they register so that we have this consistent data for better planning. These standard lists of questions typically including asking about health worker's background, like their gender. Other questions include where they got their training and how they practice. Currently, health workers are not asked about their racial identity nor whether they are Indigenous when they register to practice in a province or territory in Canada. That creates a very important gap in our knowledge. Having more complete and consistent information from a standard set of questions across different health worker groups across the provinces and territories will greatly enable us to plan for the health workforce we need, now and into the future.