Overview

The Health Workforce Strategy is a framework designed to address the ongoing and evolving pressures affecting the province’s health workforce. The strategy continues to address the evolving pressures affecting the health workforce while also considering the ongoing refocusing of the health system in Alberta.

The demands on the health system continue to increase as the population grows and needs evolve. A healthy, sustainable, engaged and efficient health care workforce is essential to ensuring timely access to health care now and into the future.

Purpose

This provincial health workforce strategy acts as a map, providing direction and a path forward for the workforce and organizations in the health system to strategically plan and navigate toward a refocused future.

Growing the health workforce

Cover page: Health Workforce Strategy 2024, image of smiling health care workers, Alberta government logo in bottom right corner

The Health Workforce Strategy’s framework is designed around 5 strategic focus areas, each with priorities and action items to build and maintain the provincial health workforce.

Review the highlights of the 5 strategic focus areas below or read the full strategy.

Read the full strategy

  • Icon of two hands holding a heart
    Strategic focus area 1: Support and retain

    Provide safe, supportive, healthy, inclusive and engaging workplaces for health workers in publicly funded settings to focus on quality care without compromising personal wellness.

Priorities

  • Create environments where health care providers are valued, rewarded and recognized fairly and equitably for their work.
  • Create environments with improved support for workforce safety, well-being and integration.
  • Create a more diverse workforce, equitable and inclusive workplace with an emphasis on encouraging everyone to lead, no matter where they work in the health system, and developing leaders that strengthen the workforce and enhance the patient experience.
  • Reduce uncertainty and provide transparent communication to the health workforce as it transitions to the new sector-based provincial health agencies.
  • Icon of 3 people in cirlces connected by a line.
    Strategic focus area 2: Attract

    Attract and grow the health workforce by reducing barriers, optimizing recruitment and creating effective pathways.

Priorities

  • Clear pathways to entry to health careers in Alberta.
  • Improve inclusivity in the health workforce and enhance attraction strategies for Indigenous communities and rural, remote and underserved areas to improve health equity.
  • Remove barriers to develop a workforce specifically among those already living in rural and remote areas and Indigenous communities.
  • Icon of a hand holding a seedling
    Strategic focus area 3: Enable

    Support the professional growth and career development of the health workforce.

Priorities

  • Expand opportunities for health care workers to receive ongoing training and development to continue learning new skills and building on current competencies to better meet local needs and health system refocusing.
  • Create viable opportunities for students and graduates to gain experience in critical areas of need in Alberta.
  • Create clear career growth and development pathways for health professionals.
  • Icon of a gear and a wrench
    Strategic focus area 4: Strengthen

    Create more unified models of care across the health system to manage workforce needs.

Priorities

  • Create mechanisms to enhance a coordinated approach to health workforce planning, coordination and collaboration across the health system, and between partner organizations.
  • Improve data collection, management and analysis capabilities to enable evidence-informed workforce planning, management and investment decision-making both within and across health care professions and sectors.
  • Partner with post-secondary institutions, colleges and technical institutions to align health profession learners with health system needs.
  • Icon of a lightbulb with a gear inside.
    Strategic focus area 5: Innovate and evolve

    Empower health care professionals to work to their full scope of practice/full capability within a team-based environment to better meet population needs and system demands. This may include leveraging technologies and information systems to connect health workers to collaborate.

Priorities

  • Provide the right tools and technology to health care providers to enable the workforce to provide care.
  • Create mechanisms to enhance collaboration and sharing of patient data across the health system.
  • Provide transitional supports to drive adoption of new ways of working (for example, team-based care).

Success measures

As specific initiatives are implemented, Alberta Health will measure progress across each of the 5 strategic focus areas. Tracking will assess whether the strategy is making a tangible impact in areas such as:

  • the number of Albertans with access to a primary care provider
  • the proportion of people over the age of 65 supported to continue living in their homes or community, compared to facilities
  • access to and use of social and community services, including publicly funded mental health and addiction care
  • the retention and recruitment rate of health care workers, especially in rural and remote regions
  • the levels of engagement, satisfaction and well-being of existing health care workers across diverse professions and demographic profiles
  • the number of health care workers working to their full scope of practice and capability in the workplace

Next steps

The Alberta Health Workforce Strategy aims to create an integrated and collaborative health system that will work towards an efficient, responsive and sustainable health workforce that provides Albertans with high-quality care when and where they need it.

We remain committed to supporting, caring for and valuing health care workers, ensuring that Albertans receive the high-quality care they need, and deserve.

News