HRSA's Health Workforce Initiative: An Opportunity for Dialogue

While the Health Resources and Services Administration has always played a role in health workforce research and policy analysis, the resources available to support research and analysis have been limited in recent years. However, the national discussion around health care reform and its potential impact on the need for health professionals has stimulated increased interest in a coordinated national health workforce strategy and created renewed concerns about the relative paucity of workforce data upon which to base a strategy. This presentation will outline HRSA's current activities which are designed to build the foundation of workforce data needed to support a strong workforce strategy and to generate an increased level of available information upon which to base workforce policies. For example, HRSA currently funds the Health Workforce Information Center (HWIC) to provide a gateway to information on health workforce issues for practitioners, employers, policy makers, and others. HRSA will be developing minimum dataset standards and definitions for use in generating the necessary data in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. HRSA will provide assistance in various ways to insure that the needed data is collected and aggregated. HRSA will convene meetings of organizations in particular areas, such as public health, to engage in consensus building on what research is needed. Of particular interest to the public health audience, HRSA is collaborating with CDC on a range of public health workforce issues. The presenters will engage the attendees in an extended dialogue in order to inform the evolving agency agenda related to health workforce data and analysis broadly and for the public health workforce in particular.