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.
- Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group (NMPG) took the unusual step of developing a clinical career ladder for its medical assistants (MAs) in 2003, and, more recently, for its patient services representatives (PSRs). Medical assistants are the largest group of non-licensed employees at NMPG....
- The community health center movement that was founded in the mid-1960s has since grown into a complex system of clinics that are critical to the delivery of high quality, comprehensive health care services for poor and underserved populations across California and the nation. Historically,...
- PeaceHealth Medical Group received a grant to pilot a patient-centered medical home in one of its practices in Eugene, Oregon. “Team Fillingame” revised staff roles and added a part-time mental health worker to address patients’ social, behavioral and medical needs. Using a patient activation...
- The University of Utah Community Clinics’ success in achieving a remarkable financial turnaround empowered the organization to innovate further in order to improve the patient experience. The organization implemented a team-based model of care that increased the ratio of medical assistants (MAs)...
- In response to long wait times and low patient satisfaction scores, the University of California, Davis Medical Center Department of Family and Community Practice redesigned its residency-based Family Practice Center into a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). This model expanded the role of...
- BACKGROUND: Nurse staffing has been linked to hospital patient outcomes; however, previous results were inconsistent because of variations in measures of staffing and were only rarely specific to types of patient care units. OBJECTIVE: To determine the relationship between nurse staffing in general...
- The California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) is responsible for protecting the health and safety of the public by regulating registered nurses (RNs) in the state. Nurses put on probation by the BRN have been disciplined for behavior that could jeopardize patient health or safety. Thus,...
- The objective of the study was to examine whether unionization is associated with job satisfaction among RNs in the United States using nationally representative surveys of RNs. Factors that predict job satisfaction for RNs in healthcare continue to be of great concern to nurse administrators and...
- The survey collects data about nursing programs and their students and faculty from August 1 through July 31. Annual data presented in this report represent August 1, 2009 through July 31, 2010. Demographic information and census data were requested for October 15, 2010. Data from pre- and post-...
- AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: We estimate the impact of unionisation on the wage structure of hospital-employed registered nurses in the USA. We examine whether unions have an effect on wage differences associated with race, gender, immigration status, education and experience, as well as whether there is...
- As the US seeks to improve the effectiveness and accessibility of the oral health care delivery system – in order to reduce stark disparities in oral health utilization and outcomes that exist in this country – new and innovative models of practice will be necessary. One model includes...
- This study examines the development of the registered dental hygienist in alternative practice in California through an analysis of archival documents, stakeholder interviews, and two surveys of the registered dental hygienist in alternative practice. Designing, testing and implementing a new...
- OBJECTIVE: We conducted a review of the literature to determine the impact of health information technologies (HITs) on nurses and nursing care. BACKGROUND: Nurses' effective use of HIT has the potential to produce a positive impact on nursing-sensitive patient outcomes, patient safety, and quality...
- School based health centers go beyond the traditional services of a school nurse to provide comprehensive care – including primary and mental health care – to students. The centers are seen as a way to reach populations that would otherwise not be receiving appropriate care. California has many...
- PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to describe the implementation process and participant satisfaction with a lifestyle program provided by nurse practitioners (NPs) in primary care to adults at risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) compared to enhanced standard care. DATA SOURCES: A mixed-method...
- The Atlantic City HEREIU Local 54 Health and Welfare Fund and AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center partnered to develop the “Special Care Center” (SCC), a new clinic that provides coordinated care management to patients with multiple chronic illnesses. The new center recruited and trained a group of...
- Kaiser Permanente Southern California has developed an innovative tool, the Proactive Office Encounter (POE), embedded in its cutting-edge electronic health record system, HealthConnect. The POE interface prompts medical assistants and licensed vocational nurses to remind patients at the time of...
- High Plains Community Health Center, a federally qualified health center in Colorado, redesigned its workflow to increase productivity by increasing the number of support staff per provider. Medical Assistants (MAs) are cross-trained to rotate through front and back office roles in a team-based...
- Close to 300,000 actively licensed registered nurses (RNs) live in California, making nursing the largest health profession in the state. California’s RN workforce has doubled in size since 1980, and RN wage growth has been very strong compared with other health care occupations. Still, the rate...
- Cabin Creek Health Systems, a federally-qualified health clinic in West Virginia, trained a team of experienced Medical Assistants to provide risk assessments and care coordination to elderly patients, and to conduct home visits to frail elderly patients in remote rural areas. The organization...
- Policy brief on the impact of the Affordable Care Act on demand for health professionals in California and on provisions of the Affordable Care Act that address health workforce needs.
- Recent theoretical and empirical advances have renewed interest in monopsonistic models of the labor market. However, there is little direct empirical support for these models. We use an exogenous change in wages at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals as a natural experiment to...
- As many tenured nonprofit leaders prepare to transition out of leadership roles, studies predict an approaching gap in the leadership pipeline. They report that a limited number of “next generation leaders” are ready and eager to accept senior leadership positions. This impending gap is evident in...
- In 2005, the UNITE HERE (Union) Health Center in New York City embarked on a new initiative that expanded the role of medical assistants (MAs) to provide team-based care and health coaching for patients with chronic diseases. This initiative includes the creation of a career ladder for medical...
- It has long been known that certain ethnic and racial groups are underrepresented in the health professions. We looked specifically at participation rates of men of color in health professions education programs in California and found that the representation of African American and Latino men is...
- The quality domains of patient-centered and equitable care are increasingly relevant to today's healthcare leaders as hospitals care for patients with increasingly diverse cultural and linguistic needs. Hospital leaders face substantial tensions in defining their organization's strategic priorities...
- AIM: To examine whether there were improvements in the satisfaction of hospital-employed registered nurses (RNs) in the mid-2000s. BACKGROUND: In recent years, many hospitals have made efforts to improve workplace characteristics, in order to improve nurse satisfaction and retention. There has...
- Registered nurses (RNs) who work outside of nursing have seldom been examined. This aim of this study was to compare the 122,178 (4%) of RNs who are employed outside of nursing to those who work in nursing jobs in terms of sociodemographic, market, and political variables to determine if these...
- Registered nurses (RNs) who work outside of nursing have seldom been examined. This aim of this study was to compare the 122,178 (4%) of RNs who are employed outside of nursing to those who work in nursing jobs in terms of sociodemographic, market, and political variables to determine if these...
- Web directory of US nursing schools and programs (7,700+ programs, from 2,300+ schools).