Building Capacity Through Integrated Health Workforce Planning: Co-Creating Canada’s First Interprofessional Policy for Sustainable Health Workforce Development

Background: Canada’s health workforce is under strain. Health care delivery and related health workforce planning has not kept pace with the needs of an aging population and growing demand for services, resulting in fragmented care and persistent access challenges. Planning has traditionally occurred in professional or jurisdictional silos, disconnected from broader health system transformation. A new, integrated approach is needed to align health workforce planning with population health needs and system goals.

 

Approach: The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) led a multi-year, evidence-informed, and highly consultative initiative to develop Canada’s first Integrated Health Workforce Planning Policy. The process engaged interprofessional partners alongside health system leaders, researchers, unions, regulators, ministries, Indigenous leaders, and persons with lived and living experience. Foundational work included evidence briefs, interprofessional dialogues, key informant interviews, and a health workforce co-creation event, the finding from the latter were shared at ICIC 2024.

 

The policy’s five core pillars were refined through a series of five sector-specific invitational dialogues with 62 key informants representing persons with lived experience, researchers, medicine, health professions, and health system leaders. These robust dialogues help to shape the content of the policy, which further refined through a targeted consultation involving 176 invited participants representing a wide range of health care interest and rights holders in Canada. These consultations included stand-alone Indigenous-led town halls and patient voice sessions. Feedback from 66 submissions representing 47 organizations affirmed the policy’s relevance.

 

 

 

Results: The development of the policy outlines an innovative, evidence-based approach to integrated health workforce planning that aligns workforce development and deployment with the goals of the health care system and the needs of the population. It emphasizes long-term, inclusive strategies, patient-partnered planning, and data-driven decision-making. A dedicated Indigenous-led section addresses the unique needs of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis health workforce planning, woven throughout the policy as a cross-cutting principle. The consultation process yielded robust feedback, leading to refinements in language, partner and interest-holder inclusion, and clarity of recommendations. The policy has been recognized for fostering trust, collaboration, and constructive discourse across the health system.

 

Implications: This policy offers a replicable model for jurisdictions seeking to strengthen workforce capacity, inclusivity, and resilience through integrated planning. It aligns with multiple pillars of integrated care—particularly workforce capacity and capability, system-wide governance and leadership, people as partners in health and care, and resilient communities and new alliances. The policy supports the Quintuple Aim by promoting equitable access to care, optimizing scopes of practice, and sustaining health care workers. It signals a long-term commitment to health system transformation and the importance of building relationships across sectors to co-create solutions that meet the evolving needs of communities.