Associations representing oral well being professionals proceed their push for detailed workforce knowledge, regardless of earlier makes an attempt to safe the knowledge wanted for long-term planning.
“At this level, the one knowledge we’ve got is the entire variety of dental hygienists registered in every province and territory,” stated Sylvie Martel, director of dental hygiene apply on the Canadian Dental Hygienists Affiliation (CDHA). “We don’t know whether or not they’re working in clinics, specialty practices, in schooling, analysis or administration — we don’t know in the event that they work half time or full time, and we don’t know their actual location.”
Martel stated the CDHA, Canadian Dental Affiliation (CDA), Canadian Dental Assistants Affiliation (CDAA) and the Denturists Affiliation of Canada have collectively utilized for a Well being Canada grant to construct what she referred to as a “very strong workforce planning mannequin.”
“All oral well being professions are in the identical boat,” she stated. “We wouldn’t have sound knowledge on oral well being workforce.”
“If we are able to work collectively to map inhabitants wants and suppliers’ availability and areas, we’ll be higher capable of pinpoint shortages or oversupply,” she added.
In June, the CDHA additionally pushed again towards claims of a widespread hygienist scarcity, citing the necessity for higher work environments, retention methods and evidence-based workforce planning — following a petition by hygienists opposing calls from some Ontario dentists to broaden preventive-care roles to foreign-trained dentists amid alleged shortages.
“Accumulating well being workforce knowledge at this scale has been a fancy endeavor, not only for the oral well being sector however for all well being professions.”
Sentiment echoed by the CDA
When approaching the CDA, the sentiment is echoed.
“Important gaps stay in oral well being workforce knowledge — notably concerning employment sort (half time vs. full time), areas of specialization and workforce distribution,” the CDA stated.
The CDA confirmed that the 4 associations have submitted a proposal underneath Stream 2 of Well being Canada’s Oral Well being Entry Fund, which helps initiatives to broaden entry to oral well being care in rural, distant or underserved communities.
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Is there funding?
Nonetheless, Well being Canada says funding for detailed workforce knowledge has ended. Finances 2023 offered about $23 million over two years to Statistics Canada to develop infrastructure and gather oral well being workforce knowledge by means of the Survey of Oral Well being Care Suppliers (SOHCP) — the federal company’s first nationwide dentist and hygienist supplier survey.
“That funding has now ended, and there aren’t any present plans to proceed knowledge assortment, together with repeating the SOHCP,” stated Mark Johnson, spokesperson at Well being Canada and the Public Well being Company of Canada.
As an alternative, Well being Canada stated the Canadian Institute of Well being Data (CIHI) has a “variety of holdings, together with knowledge on oral well being professionals,” Johnson added.
“CIHI collects provide and demographic knowledge on greater than 30 totally different teams of well being care professionals, together with dental hygienists.”
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“CIHI is one supply, which isn’t all the time full.”
CIHI’s position
When Martel was requested whether or not CIHI is the CDHA’s major supply for dental hygienist workforce knowledge, which is up to date each two years, she pointed to gaps within the data.
“CIHI is one supply, which isn’t all the time full,” Martel stated. “For a few years, you could possibly see that some provinces didn’t report any numbers.”
Nonetheless, Martel acknowledged that for the 2023 dataset, CIHI offered “precise numbers of registered dental hygienists for all provinces and territories.”
“We additionally go on to the dental hygiene regulatory our bodies if we’d like an correct variety of practising or registered dental hygienists in a specific province or territory. However the regulatory physique doesn’t gather the information that we have to inform the workforce wants.”
“Within the meantime, we proceed to work collectively to collect as a lot knowledge as potential.”
Gaps endure regardless of earlier efforts
There have been earlier efforts, but workforce knowledge gaps proceed.
As an illustration, the Oral Well being Care Sector Examine Group (OHCSSO) was shaped in 2003, and revealed in 2005 that the required knowledge to construct a nationwide workforce mannequin didn’t exist. Extra lately, Well being Workforce Canada launched in November 2023 to carry collectively well being and schooling teams to strengthen workforce knowledge.
The CDA supplied a glimpse into why, regardless of ongoing efforts, detailed workforce knowledge are nonetheless not the norm.
“Accumulating well being workforce knowledge at this scale has been a fancy endeavor, not only for the oral well being sector however for all well being professions,” the affiliation stated. “Even with vital funding allotted for well being human assets planning through the years by governments and undertaken by many specialists, there are nonetheless, for instance, vital shortages within the nursing and medical workforce throughout Canada.”
The CDA went on to clarify that workforce modelling is a “difficult course of” as a result of it must account for varied demand variables in addition to direct and oblique provide.
Martel, in the meantime, emphasised that regardless of the information challenges, collaboration amongst oral well being associations continues to concentrate on sensible options. “Within the meantime, we proceed to work collectively to collect as a lot knowledge as potential and see how we are able to transfer ahead with what we’ve got or what we would wish if that grant doesn’t come by means of,” she stated. “We’re working carefully to develop methods to handle workers recruitment and retention whereas guaranteeing higher work situations for employees in dental places of work.
“Our collaboration is ongoing,” she concluded.