Data Resources for Health Workforce Policy and Planning in Washington State

Abstract

There are multiple sources of data to address questions about Washington’s health workforce, including from state government entities as well as private and federal sources. The study identified and cataloged 30 currently available health workforce data sources, including 10 Washington State-based sources of supply data, 9 national supply data sources, 4 Washington-based demand sources, and 7 national demand and other data sources.

• Identifying workforce questions of greatest interest among stakeholders can help prioritize workforce data collection. Highest rated workforce supply questions among study stakeholders addressed:
  • knowing the numbers of licensed occupations with active Washington licenses;
  • the percentages of practicing health care workers in the state;
  • common health care practice settings; and
  • demographic characteristics of health care workers.
• The highest rated workforce demand questions addressed:
  • quantifying vacancy rates for different occupations across work settings;
  • the number of each occupation employed in various work settings; and
  • details of insurance coverage of populations within the state.
• Weaknesses in some of the available data about Washington’s health workforce have resulted because the data sources were originally developed for administrative and not workforce planning purposes. Some of these gaps will be filled when the state’s Healthcare Professionals Demographic Data Survey is fully implemented through the state’s Healthcare Enforcement and Licensing Management System (HELMS) portal.
• There are various ways to access health workforce data including directly accessing source data as well as viewing data through interactive public dashboards that consolidate findings from multiple data sources. Integration of multiple data sources by a single host can provide efficient user access but requires the host to have sufficient development and maintenance resources.
• In addition to improving the amount of, and access to, health workforce planning data, increasing ways to share the research findings among potential users could help maximize resource use and benefit workforce planning in Washington.

Authors:

Journal/Publisher:

Edition:

Funder:

Documents:

Citation:

Related Studies: