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.
- In 2004, California became the first state to implement minimum-nurse-staffing ratios in acute care hospitals. We examined the wages of registered nurses (RNs) before and after the legislation was enacted. Using four data sets — the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, the Current...
- In 2004, a small rural hospital in California received a grant for the implementation of an integrated IT system. As part of the grant, the hospital worked with a university team to evaluate the implementation. The evaluation plan emphasized quantitative analysis of medication errors, patient...
- This report presents supply and demand forecasts for the Registered Nurse (RN) workforce in California from 2009 through 2030. These forecasts are based on data from the 2008 California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) Survey of Registered Nurses, the US Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr) 2004...
- An increasing number of hospitals are implementing electronic medical records and other information technology (IT), and national policy is focused on fostering expansion of these systems. In September 2004, a 100-bed acute care hospital in a rural community was awarded a grant to implement and...
- Using a sample of 854 emergency medical service (EMS) respondents, this study supported a four-dimension model of occupational commitment, comprised of affective, normative, accumulated costs, and limited alternatives. When personal and job-related variables were controlled, general job...
- Nursing schools have reported a lack of clinical placement sites and insufficient numbers of qualified nursing faculty as two of the prominent barriers to expansion of their nursing programs. The Centralized Clinical Placement System (CCPS) and the Centralized Faculty Resource Center (CFRC) are two...
- Using data from the 2004 California Board of Registered Nursing Survey, a two-stage least-square equation was estimated to examine the effect of wages on hours worked by female registered nurses. Wages were found to have a nonlinear effect on hours worked, with a backward bending supply curve....
- The biennial California Survey of Registered Nurses provides information about the demographics, education, and employment of registered nurses in the state.
- Medical Assistants (MAs) play a key role as clinical support staff in California’s licensed community clinics. This issue brief examines patterns in community clinic utilization of MAs over the period 2005-2007. Key themes presented include overall community clinic growth (clinic sites &...
- The study examined health career programs for the state’s pipeline of secondary students. It revealed a broad range of program structures, including academy models, Regional Occupational Centers and Programs, magnets and stand-alone health professions high schools. Key barriers to making these...
- The 2008 Survey of California Registered Nurses is the sixth in a series of surveys designed to describe licensed nurses in California and to examine changes over time. Other studies were completed in 1990, 1993, 1997, 2004, and 2006. Like the 2004 & 2006 surveys, the 2008 survey targeted two...
- Forecasting the supply and demand of the nursing workforce is crucial to understanding the short and long term needs for nurses in California and for identifying strategies for addressing future shortages. This presentation provides data for the 2009 forecast of the nursing workforce in California.
- Physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) are increasingly being incorporated into outpatient specialty practices to improve access to care and reduce wait times. PAs and NPs also bolster the quality and financial profitability of specialty practices by allowing physicians to focus...
- While the number of RN programs as well as graduation numbers have increased, and some regions do not currently in this recession experience a shortage, the overall projected shortage of nurses still looms in the future. Detailed data is presented to the California Healthcare Workforce Policy...
- An influx of new students in the mental health professions will be needed in order to serve a growing number of Californians. Beyond addressing a shortage of mental health providers, a more diverse mental health workforce is desired in order to better reflect the increasing diversity in California’...
- Research shows that unions have some effect on nurse wages, for example a modest effect on the wage structure by eliminating race gaps on one hand, but giving lower premiums for experience.
- The mental health workforce is challenged to provide needed mental health services to a growing and increasingly diverse population in California. By interviewing stakeholders and reviewing key literature this report seeks to assess the supply, demand, education, training, and diversity of...
- Each year, the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) requires all pre-licensure registered nursing programs in California to complete a survey detailing statistics of their programs, students and faculty. Information gathered from these surveys is compiled into a database and used to analyze...
- In 2004, California became the first state to implement minimum-nurse-staffing ratios in acute care hospitals. We examined the wages of registered nurses (RNs) before and after the legislation was enacted. Using four data sets—the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, the Current Population...
- This presentation takes a closer look at the impact of the CPRS and BCMA implementation in the VA on nurses and care quality, as this qualitative and quantitative study finds that overall quality neither increased nor decreased and nurse staffing was not affected.
- In 2004, California began requiring that acute-care hospitals maintain certain minimum ratios between nurses and patients, making it the first state in the nation to do so. However, little is known about what effects the staffing ratios have had, either on the hospitals themselves or the quality of...
- Each year, the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) requires all pre-licensure registered nursing programs in California to complete a survey detailing statistics of their programs, students and faculty. The survey collects data from August 1 through July 31 of the following year....
- Purpose–A very limited number of studies have explored factors related to emergency medical services (EMS) workers leaving their jobs and the profession. This paper aims to investigate the correlates of intent to leave EMS jobs and the profession and compared two types of workers: emergency medical...
- OBJECTIVES: To report on the creation of a leadership development program targeted exclusively at pharmacists working in management in the professional community. SETTING: Large staff-model health maintenance organization (HMO) in California between 2004 and 2008. PRACTICE DESCRIPTION: The Pharmacy...
- The California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) is interested in knowing more about the movement of nurses into and out of California and commissioned the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to research behaviors of these nurses. Every month during the six-month study period, the BRN...
- This report provides an overview of the dental hygiene workforce labor market in California.
- Registered dental hygienists (RDHs) focus on providing critical preventive and therapeutic dental hygiene services for the population of California. The labor market for dental hygienists is responsive to variations in multiple factors at the local level. This study explores the labor market for...
- The development of the future oral health care workforce is a central focus of WICHE, which has a long history of partnering with states to improve access to dental and other professional training via the Professional Student Exchange Program. This report highlights some of the key trends, issues,...
- One of the many challenges facing America’s health care system has been securing sufficient numbers of practitioners to fill jobs and meet patient needs. Allied health professions particularly hard hit in recent years include respiratory care and imaging (or radiologic technology). To better...
- Objective: To compare alternative measures of nurse staffing and assess the relative strengths and limitations of each measure. Data Sources/Study Setting: Primary and secondary data from 2000 and 2002 on hospital nurse staffing from the American Hospital Association, California Office of Statewide...