Integrated Primary Care Workforce Planning: An Iterative Stepped Model Applied in Toronto, Canada

Context Workforce planning supports the quintuple aim. Leading practices in planning for comprehensive primary care provision require an inclusive and data-driven approach.

Objective To create an evidence-informed set of tools to support decision-making and equitable distribution of primary care human resources.

Study Design & Analysis Using an integrated knowledge exchange approach, we developed and operationalized a comprehensive regional-level primary care workforce planning process, toolkit, and dashboard. Research ethics approval was deemed unnecessary.

Setting The setting encompasses primary health care system in Toronto, Canada.

Population Studied A range of stakeholders (including clinicians across disciplines, data stewards, analysts, local policy and health service decision-makers, and government) were engaged to identify, collect and display relevant health administrative data about population characteristics, health needs, workforce capacity and availability.

Intervention/Instrument A toolkit to synthesize information needed to understand the neighbourhood-level primary care and health workforce landscapes and a dashboard to facilitate engagement with the planning process provide integrated support for evidence-informed decision-making.

Results The planning process unfolds in four steps: (1) horizon scanning for relevant trends, (2) scenario generation of most impactful trends, (3) population utilization and workforce capacity modeling, and (4) policy analysis to address gaps in alignment. The toolkit builds a body of evidence around the current (and projected future) states of population health needs and primary care service provision at a neighbourhood level within the City of Toronto. The interactive dashboard is the interface between stakeholders and the planning toolkit and synthesizes the best available data to support evidence-informed planning and decision-making.

Conclusion Our approach leverages international leading practices in workforce planning and knowledge exchange to make information accessible to a range of service and policy decision-makers.