Evidence to Care: Learning from a Case Study of Health Workforce Planning and COVID-19 Response in Nova Scotia.

Abstract

Repeated calls to adopt more robust workforce planning, particularly for the nursing workforce, stretch back decades. These calls have generally not been met with action by health system decision makers, and the negative consequences - widespread shortages, even in wealthy countries, and decreased quality of care despite increased costs - have come to pass much as predicted. In contrast to this historical pattern, this paper presents Nova Scotia Health's experience in planning for its critical care nursing workforce during COVID-19 as a case study in integrating evidence-based workforce planning into the operations of a healthcare organization.