Access to timely, comprehensive and connected health workforce data is essential for planning, policy, research, and decision making. In a recent workshop, experts from Health Workforce Canada (HWC) discussed how issues such as decentralized data capture and inconsistent standards and practices can hinder effective workforce planning. Attendees received an update on how HWC is enhancing health workforce data and planning through several initiatives, including strategic work and the establishment of an interactive data and information dashboard. By consolidating data into a single, easily accessible repository, health planners and decision-makers can obtain a clear and comprehensive overview of Canada’s health workforce and the population’s needs.
Key Insights
- It’s time to think collectively about what kinds of data would be most helpful to better understand and plan for Canada’s health workforce.
- We can get started by understanding what questions people are looking to answer, for example:
- What is the supply and demand of the workforce in a specific jurisdiction?
- How is burnout impacting health worker and patient experiences?
- How do we plan in rural and remote areas?
- We can pull together data where it exists, making it easy to access and use – and we have started to do this with the new Health Workforce Canada data and information dashboards.
- Then, where there are gaps in the data, we can make improvements through pan-Canadian strategic work: addressing issues of data comprehensiveness, timeliness and connectedness, as well as ensuring respect of Indigenous data sovereignty.
Key Actions
- Expand capabilities of current dashboards that centralize health workforce data, including more granular views, more information on allied health professionals, linking with population needs data and connecting to outcomes of care indicators.
- Establish an advisory group and theme focused sub-groups to create a pan-Canadian health workforce data strategy, over the next year.