Reimagining health workforce planning in Canada

Think differently about solutions. Care for those that care. Create a sustainable future where our healthcare workers are valued and thrive.

Like many countries around the world, Canada is working to address the complex, multi-faceted challenge of meeting health system objectives and population health needs in a fiscally constrained system. As the country strives to drive improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, the planning, recruitment, retention, regulation, and deployment of the health workforce must be center to system-focused efforts that will have ripple effects in our communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the Canadian healthcare system and its workers to their breaking point. The workforce is demoralized, overworked, and burnt out. Patient care has been affected. These challenges have now firmly demonstrated the longstanding need for change.

Healthcare systems and organizations must think differently about how they build and support their workforce if they want to remain competitive and effective in a post-pandemic future. The North Star for healthcare has always been about prioritizing the needs of the patient. However, if we have learned anything throughout the pandemic, it’s this: success will mean putting people first – and that includes our healthcare workers.

We recognize that the health workforce challenge is a complex problem requiring a multi-faceted solution across Canada’s diverse jurisdictional contexts. Below we provide a report that brings global inspiration on how jurisdictions have addressed health workforce challenges similar to what Canada now faces, in support of creating a better future for our healthcare workers and patients alike.

Our team brings deep global insights and experience to the health workforce conversation. We work with health system stakeholders to implement solutions driven by collaboration and innovation that establish an environment where our healthcare workers thrive. We are helping organizations and health systems stabilize, support, and shape health workforce capacity to address today’s challenges and proactively meet future needs.

• How do we think differently about our health workforce to create immediate and long-term solutions?
• What practical strategies can we implement to better recruit, enable and retain our workforce?
• What workforce transformation models and capabilities do we need to successfully drive implementation and sustain initiatives?

• What does the supply and demand gap look like across my organization or health system now and into the future?
• What might be the impact of retirement and attrition on care delivery?
• How do we re-think roles, skills, and distribution of tasks as we shift to new models of care?
• What can my organization do in the next 1-2 years to optimize our workforce and mitigate projected workforce gaps?

• What does equity, diversity, inclusion mean for my organization? How can we do better?
• How do we ensure an accessible and inclusive work environment?
• How do we attract and retain talent?
• How do we foster a sense of belonging for all employees?