CRHWorks: Workforce Data & Analysis

Due to the ongoing transformation of the healthcare delivery system in the U.S., it is important for states to collect, compile, analyze and report on the health workforce. It is especially important to provide data-driven solutions to the existing maldistribution of the health workforce that plays a role in shortages and constrained access to care for population based on geography or demographic factors.

Education, training, retention and support for the rural health workforce is a key element of the mission of the Arizona Center for Rural Health (AzCRH). Health workforce research is essential to making data-driven decision on policies and programs aimed at the workforce pipeline. AzCRH has published multiple reports on the health workforce since 2007. 

In 2018 AzCRH began work on a new project that builds on the history of workforce research conducted by the Center. The aim of this project, called CRHWorks, is to build a health workforce data system that provides timely and accurate reports to the public, policy-makers, and public health and healthcare stakeholders.

CRHWorks aims to:

• Build a database system that supports the compilation, synthesis and analysis of publicly available health workforce data
• Create an online data visualization platform so the public and stakeholders can access health workforce data to answer questions and inform programs and policy decisions
• Create annual reports that add important context and data to existing efforts to document health workforce shortages by the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS)

The standardized collection and reporting of health workforce data will support AzCRH and other stakeholders to answer questions regarding health workforce:

• Supply
• Demand
• Distribution
• Recruitment and Retention
• Influence of social and demographic factors on workforce needs

AzCRH also supports efforts at the state level to establish the collection of health workforce data under a Minimum Data Set (MDS) model. The MDS model “provides basic, consistent guidelines for fundamental health workforce questionnaires. These questions can be used by anyone who wants to collect data on the supply of health workers, whether through the licensure process or surveys, and can be adapted for additional professions.” MDS data can be collected at time of licensure and supplement the basic licensure data with additional data relevant to health workforce research and analysis.