At Healthforce Center, our research on the health care workforce offers timely analysis and guidance for providers, policymakers and funders in addressing critical delivery and improvement challenges. We have a team of nationally recognized research experts who work to define issues and support health policy change with rigorous analysis, high-quality data and actionable recommendations.
Our expertise covers the entire health workforce — the full range of licensed professions, credentialed occupations, and emerging roles such as community health workers and peer providers, and across all types of settings from acute to long-term care. We specialize in examining evolving trends in care models, care team composition, and promising new models for the delivery of high-quality health care.
Committed to Improving Health Equity
Our commitment to improving health equity and ensuring a diverse health workforce translates into research that emphasizes expanding cultural competence and language concordance, promoting workforce diversity through education and development programs, and evaluating care models that ensure health equity.
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As the nation seeks to improve access to primary care services, medical assistants (MAs) will be a critical component of that growth. Medical assisting is one of the fastest growing occupations in the country with large numbers of annual job openings. Historically, MA training has been of...
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Greater reliance on nurse practitioners (NPs) has been widely recognized as a critical component to the successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In particular, NPs are viewed integral to the delivery of primary care services, demand for which is expected to increase as more...
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Support at Home (S@H) is a pilot program of the San Francisco Department of Aging and Adult Services to provide home care vouchers to keep San Francisco adults with disabilities and seniors living safely in the community. The goal of Support at Home is to serve individuals who are not eligible for...
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When was the last time your primary care clinician asked you about your teeth? Oral health is central to overall health in a way that is not commonly understood or supported by a model of primary care in the United States that carves out dentistry. Yet oral health problems can lead to heart and...
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Safety-net providers often report challenges recruiting and retaining staff, particularly for high-cost, high-demand professions such as registered nurses and physicians. Rural providers face greater difficulty due to the relatively lower supply of health professionals in rural communities, and...
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This three-year effort will evaluate a language access systems intervention (LASI) and test evidence-guided and patient-centered interventions to reduce disparities for Chinese- and Spanish-speaking patients who have limited English proficiency.
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UCSF has conducted studies of the supply, education, and other aspects of California’s nursing workforce for the California Board of Registered Nursing since 2005. Every two years, Healthforce researchers conduct the Survey of Registered Nurses, which provides detailed information about nurse...
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Alzheimer's disease (AD) and AD-related dementia (ADRD) is a profoundly debilitating disease with risk increasing with age (Alzheimer's Foundation of America, 2016). This disease will quickly burden a growing percentage of Americans and pose a great challenge for the U.S. health care system. Adult...
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Dental caries, and its resulting cavities, is the most common disease of childhood, causing significant costs to individuals and society. Disparities in oral health status, access to services, and utilization of dental care for the Medicaid-enrolled pediatric population have been well documented...
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Peer providers are individuals with lived experience who are hired to provide direct support to persons in recovery from mental health (MH) and/or substance use disorders (SUD). These workers are increasingly being used to support transitions of care from inpatient mental health and substance abuse...
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Arizona’s health care employers are facing many challenges in training, recruiting, and retaining an adequate workforce. Healthforce Center researchers supported strategic health workforce planning in Arizona by conducting a multiphase study with Vitalyst Health Foundation. The first phase...
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The Affordable Care Act is significantly impacting care delivery. This shift towards more patient-centered and cost effective care is creating innovative opportunities to reduce illness and manage the health of at-risk populations. Various care settings (such as hospitals, FQHCs, and health centers...
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This series examines the scope of practice of selected California health professions. The series looks at professions discussed by the California Future Health Workforce Commission and its subcommittees and workgroups during the spring and summer of 2018. Each brief begins by describing the...
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Medication treatment for opioid use disorder is an important component of efforts to reduce the high social costs of prescription and non-prescription opioid abuse and mortality. This approach incorporates pharmacotherapies (e.g., buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone) as part of treatment for...
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In 1999, California adopted historic legislation requiring that specific minimum nurse-to-patient ratios be established for all units in acute care hospitals in the state. The Department of Health Services established regulations in accordance with this legislation, and the ratios were implemented...
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Over the past 16 months, Healthforce Center at UCSF has gathered information to help policymakers, consumers and leaders of health care delivery organizations and education institutions better understand California's primary care workforce needs. As the project has progressed a singular...
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A severe underrepresentation of minority providers persists despite evidence of the benefits of a diverse workforce. The Institute of Medicine’s 2002 report Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care recommended improving the diversity of the workforce as a key...
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Around 18 percent of adults in California report needing help for mental health problems or issues with substance abuse, but can the state's behavioral health workforce meet this growing demand? This research project explored the adequacy of California's current behavioral health workforce, which...
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There is a clear need for agile and effective change agents in today’s rapidly changing health care environment. Managers are uniquely positioned within organizations to play a pivotal role in informing and accelerating organizational transformation, but they often need support in developing the...
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Healthforce Center researchers have conducted numerous surveys and studies of advanced practice registered nurses, including nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, clinical nurse specialists, and nurse anesthetists. This research has examined: The characteristics of California’s nurse practitioner...