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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Many U.S. residents who speak little English may face language barriers when seeking health care. This article describes what is currently known about language barriers in health care and outlines a research agenda based on mismatches between the current state of knowledge of language barriers and...
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During a labor shortage, employment-based benefits can be used to recruit and retain workers. This paper provides data on the availability of benefits to registered nurses (RNs), reports on how health care leaders are approaching the provision of employment-based benefits for nurses, and considers...
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As the U.S. experiences a rapid aging of the nation's population, with the number of Americans age 65 and over doubling between 2000 and 2030, the demand for long-term care will rise significantly. The nation faces critical shortages in the health care workforce, particularly among direct...
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Of the 33 million people in California, the nation's most populous state, minority groups now constitute the majority of the population. Many sources predict that by 2060, the entire country will mirror the diversity of California today. Like the rest of the country, California is experiencing a...
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This article examines the literature on cost-effectiveness in nursing, and considers the relationship between this literature and decision-making in health care systems. Researchers have attempted to examine costs and benefits of nurse staffing and nursing interventions for decades. There are...
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This chapter of the 25th volume of the Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics reviews key issues associated with the aging registered nurse workforce, particularly challenges of ensuring an adequate supply of nurses in the future.
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There is substantial disagreement regarding the impact of hospitalists on costs, quality, and satisfaction with inpatient care. The authors reviewed 21 evaluations of the use of hospitalists in U.S. hospitals. Most evaluations found that patients managed by hospitalists had lower total costs or...
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Driven by the aging population and the efficacy of drug therapy in the management of chronic disease, the increased use of pharmaceutical products has become the fastest growing, most dynamic part of the health care system. This issue brief finds the pharmacy safety net facing a looming crisis. The...
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The objective of the study was to produce a report to inform the health professions educational community, the health care community, and the public about issues related to the clinical laboratory workforce. Research questions addressed the size of the workforce, demographic characteristics, role...
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High vacancy rates in the clinical laboratory profession have led to the use of wage increases and financial incentives to attract and retain workers. American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) surveys indicate that wages for Medical Technologists and Medical Laboratory Technicians have been...
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On any given day American doctors; offices, hospital emergency rooms, and health centers, are alive with the sounds not only of Spanish, but also of Haitian, Creole, Somali, Hmong, Mandarin, Russian, and other languages from across the globe. These languages communicate more than words. They can...
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In most regions of California, there is now a shortage of registered nurses, and shortages will grow over the next 25 years. This report presents forecasts of supply and demand for RNs in regions of California and finds a current and widening gap between the supply of and demand for RNs through at...
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Californians speak a multitude of languages. In 2000, California ranked first in the U.S. in percent of the population speaking English less than “very well”. With 20% of the general population and 25% of school-age children of limited English proficiency, concerns are rising that many Californians...
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The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis of the Bureau of Health Professions in the Health Research and Services Administration commissioned the New York Center for Health Workforce Studies at the SUNY School of Public Health to conduct a study of the public health workforce. The study...
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Advocates have pressed for legislation mandating improvements in nurse staffing for at least a decade. Recent research publications have established a strong link between nurse staffing and the quality of patient care. These studies suggest that legislation that increases nurse staffing has the...
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The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Bureau of Health Professions contracted with the University of California at San Francisco Center for the Health Professions to conduct a study of the clinical laboratory workforce. The...
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The author examines the history and early implementation of specific minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in all units of acute-care hospitals in California. After reviewing preliminary forecasts of the effects of the ratios, the effects of the regulations in the first few months of their implementation...
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This study examines the demand, supply, utilization, and scope of practice of LPNs in the United States. Particular attention is paid to educational issues, career mobility, geographic distribution, and the ability of LPNs to substitute for registered nurses.
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Objective: To validate physicians' self-reported intentions to leave clinical practice and the American Medical Association (AMA) Masterfile practice status variable as measures of physician attrition, and to determine predictors of intention to leave, and actual departure from, clinical practice....
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OBJECTIVE: The author reviews the causes of nursing shortages and surpluses and examines data from California hospitals to demonstrate how these cycles are expressed in the demand for and wages of nurses. BACKGROUND: Nursing shortages have been reported cyclically for more than 50 years in the...