Paving the way to plan for the health workforce
Health workers in Canada work hard to care for people in every corner of the country, every day. But across the country, the data collected on the health workforce is fragmented and incomplete, constraining the ability of health system partners to plan effectively and respond to evolving population health needs.
The Pan‑Canadian Health Workforce Data Strategy, led by Health Workforce Canada, provides tangible recommendations to enhance health workforce data across the country. The ultimate goal: to enable evidence‑informed health workforce planning and decision‑making through an improved data foundation.
“Our data strategy is just one of the ways Health Workforce Canada aims to transform planning for the health workforce now and into the future to support health workers and ensure sustainable access to care,” says Sean Chilton, Chief Executive Officer, Health Workforce Canada.
The Pan‑Canadian Health Workforce Data Strategy has been co-developed with partners across Canada to build a comprehensive, inclusive, and coordinated health workforce data ecosystem that supports better decisions, more responsive planning, and improved health outcomes for people across Canada.
As a young adult living with complex, chronic illness, health workforce data is deeply personal to Jenna Kedy, Canadian Medical Association Patient Voice Member from Nova Scotia: “It’s the reason some of us get care in time and the reason others fall through the cracks completely.”
Health workforce data is information that helps describe the health workforce in Canada. It includes the types of health workers, how many there are, where they work, what they do, how the workforce is changing over time, and contexts that shape how people enter, stay in, or leave, the system.
The Pan‑Canadian Health Workforce Data Strategy aims to improve the overall health workforce data foundation by leveraging in a standardized way the rich local, provincial/territorial, and employer-level health workforce data that already exist and are essential for workforce planning and service delivery.
“We welcome Health Workforce Canada’s leadership in articulating a shared vision to strengthen health workforce data across Canada. Across jurisdictions, workforce data can be fragmented and difficult to compare, limiting our ability to fully leverage the strength of Canada’s health data. Canada holds some of the richest health data in the world – and when it’s brought together in a more coordinated way, it can generate the insight needed to strengthen workforce planning and patient care across the country,” says Anderson Chuck, President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
“A number of the strategy’s proposed recommendations align with work already underway at CIHI. Continued progress will depend on collaboration across jurisdictions, partners, and funders to advance reliable national health workforce data – and CIHI is committed to working alongside Health Workforce Canada and partners to advance this work.”
In developing the data strategy, Health Workforce Canada is committed to ‘progress over perfection’. It starts with practical steps that can be initiated and/or continued across Canada, recognizing the strategy will continue to evolve over time as needs and technologies change.
“The Canadian Forces Health Services is proud to support the Pan‑Canadian Health Workforce Data Strategy. Timely, connected data strengthens our ability to plan, coordinate, and respond – whether in day-to-day operations or national emergencies,” says Shoba Ranganathan, Executive Director Canadian Forces Health Services. “By improving data sharing and aligning standards across jurisdictions, this strategy helps all partners make better, faster decisions for the health of Canadians. We look forward to continued collaboration in building a more resilient, well‑supported health workforce.”
Throughout the data strategy, shared outcomes articulate what success looks like for the health workforce data ecosystem across jurisdictions, while recommendations set out practical, incremental actions to support progress towards the five shared outcomes:
- Equity-driven, high-quality data for decision-making
- Partnerships with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis organizations
- Efficient, interoperable data flow
- Strengthened domestic workforce supply through education data
- Improved data on internationally educated health professionals.
As the Pan-Canadian Health Workforce Data Strategy is implemented across Canada, data will be more consistently collected, comparable, accessible, and governed including through strategic collaboration with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis partners. This will enable planning that supports a thriving and supported health workforce across Canada.
Health system partners can use the data strategy to:
- Learn about known/existing standards, definitions, and ongoing initiatives to improve the comparability and usability of health workforce data
- Support a common understanding of gaps, incremental improvements, and where alignment creates the most value
- Work toward a connected, timely, and equitable health workforce data ecosystem.