Help Wanted: How to Address Labour Shortages in Healthcare and Improve Patient Access

COVID Highlights Acute Shortage of Healthcare Workers

• This report evaluates factors contributing to healthcare labour shortages and investigates the inter-relationships between access to health services, the number of healthcare providers, compensation rates and migration patterns.
• Recommendations include a critical and strategic examination of fee schedules for physician services, with the goal of reducing the average cost per service but strategically increasing remuneration for difficult-to-access services, as well as allowing nurses and other care providers to increase the efficiency of healthcare delivery by expanding scopes of practice or filling gaps when there is a shortage of family or specialist physicians.
• The report also proposes an increase not only the number of places in medical schools, but also residency positions, both for Canadian medical graduates and internationally trained ones, particularly in disciplines projected to be in short supply.