Strengthening Canada's Health Workforce
Midterm Workshop Summary

Overview

On January 27, 2026, CIHR's Institute of Health Services and Policy Research and partners hosted the midterm workshop for the Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation program. This report summarizes the program aims, the workshop objectives and the major themes discussed.

The Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation Program

In Spring 2024, CIHR's Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR) and program partners invested over $11.5M in the Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation funding program.

The funding program was designed to advance the understanding of how to implement, evaluate, and spread/scale transformative, evidence-informed workforce solutions that address system level challenges and contribute to achieving the Quintuple Aim. The program focuses on promising, equity-focused solutions that will support a healthy, resilient, diverse, and equitable health workforce. The program funds 15 Health Workforce Implementation Science Teams (ISTs). The ISTs are working on projects that span a range of health workforces, including primary care clinicians, nurses, the pediatric workforce, and the public health workforce. Each team reflects a collaboration between researchers, decision/policy makers, and health providers, helping to ensure the research is aligned with real-world needs and enhancing its potential to create meaningful impact. The program also supports the Health Workforce Evidence Support and Knowledge Mobilization (ESKM) Hub, which helps bridge the gap between research and real-world impact. It provides funded teams with tools, networking opportunities, and rapid evidence supports to ensure findings inform policy and practice across Canada.

The Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation funding program was led by CIHR-IHSPR in collaboration with the Institute of Aging (IA), the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), the Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH), the Institute of Population and Public Health (IPPH), the Centre for Research on Pandemic Preparedness and Health Emergencies (CRPPHE), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, and Michael Smith Health Research BC.

The Health Workforce Midterm Workshop

The purpose of the midterm workshop was to convene the health workforce implementation science teams, program partners, and invited guests to:

1. Provide a forum for participants to connect, share experiences, and learn from one another's health workforce research projects.
2. Foster sharing of challenges encountered, opportunities identified, and key lessons learned.
3. Create a space for dialogue and idea exchange among workshop participants to inspire fresh perspectives, encourage collaboration, and spark innovative approaches to health workforce research and its impact on practice and policy.

Opening Remarks – CIHR's President, Dr. Paul Hébert & CIHR-IHSPR's Scientific Director, Dr. Rick Glazier

The workshop opened with remarks from the CIHR-IHSPR Scientific Director, Dr. Rick Glazier, and CIHR's President, Dr. Paul Hébert. Dr. Hébert highlighted CIHR's Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation program as a key mechanism for implementing, evaluating, and scaling evidence-informed solutions – moving beyond pilot projects toward real-world impact through strong implementation science and knowledge mobilization. He stressed collaboration for impact, calling for alignment of interests and resources across partners to maximize collective value.

"I encourage all of us to be bold and courageous in our research"

Dr. Hébert called for boldness, courage, and innovation and reminded participants that Canada needs coordinated, evidence driven, people centred approaches to strengthen the health workforce. He emphasized that the work of the implementation science teams represents a critical step toward achieving that vision.

Research Team Presentations

During the workshop, each implementation science team had the opportunity to present and discuss their research, lessons learned, challenges and successes. Presentations were organized according to key themes:

• Enhancing the Health Workforce through Role Optimization & System Integration
• Workforce Training, Mentoring & Capacity Building
• Equity-Driven, Culturally Responsive Community-Connected Care

On Air With the Experts

This session provided participants with the opportunity to engage with experts on key issues that were identified by the research team as opportunities for shared learning.

The key topics identified as priorities to discuss were: 1) Rapid Response Research, 2) Knowledge Mobilization, 3) Shaping Health Workforce Policy, 4) Patient and Community Engagement, and 5) Collaborating for Impact to Tackle Workforce Recruitment, Retention, and System Partnerships.

Breakout group discussions were facilitated by leaders from each of the respective fields including Dr. Andrea Tricco (Scientist and Executive Director of the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute), Dr. Ian Graham (Knowledge Mobilization Scholar in Residence, CIHR), Dr. Geneviève Moineau (former Chief Medical Workforce Advisor, Health Canada), Dr. Stirling Bryan (Interim Executive Director, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute), and Dr. Leigh Chapman (Chief Nursing Officer of Canada). Their leadership and expertise supported an informed dialogue and deeper exploration of each topic.

Cross-cutting insights

Facilitated by Deb Cohen (Chief Operating Officer, Health Workforce Canada), the report back synthesized key takeaways from each of the five sessions.

Across all five breakout groups, participants reinforced that health workforce challenges are system level and complex, requiring coordinated action across policy, practice, research, and community contexts. While each group approached this complexity from a different angle (policy, rapid response, knowledge mobilization, patient/community engagement, and collaboration for impact), common threads emerged.

Top 5 Session Takeaways

1. Evidence must move at the speed of decision making.
   Policy windows open and close quickly; research timelines often do not. Teams highlighted the growing need for rapid synthesis, embedded research capacity, and trusted intermediaries to translate findings in real time.
2. Relationships are infrastructure.
   Trust with policymakers, communities, and partners takes time but enables future impact. Participants consistently emphasized that sustained engagement is not a "soft" activity, it is critical to achieving impact.
3. Equity and engagement are foundational, not additive.
   Meaningful involvement of Indigenous partners, equity deserving communities, patients, and people with lived experience requires humility, flexibility, compensation, cultural safety, and a willingness to pivot research plans.
4. System transformation requires coordination.
   Many research partners are "over partnered." Consider working with other research teams doing similar work to optimize partner engagement – e.g., co-planning engagement sessions, aligning research timelines where possible, or coordinating joint communications to help increase likelihood of evidence uptake.
5. Knowledge mobilization must meet people where they are.
   Knowledge mobilization must start with an understanding of people's context and capacities. Co-production, communities of practice, visual tools, plain language materials and multilingual access may all play a role.

Deb summarized the discussion using a "two lens" approach: strong data and research are necessary, but not sufficient, without leadership, trust, co design, and alignment with real world decision contexts.

Deb closed the report back by emphasizing that policy relevant workforce research must be responsive to competing priorities, constant change, and must leverage multiple levers for impact including trust and relationships with policymakers and communities. She then passed the session to newly appointed CEO of Health Workforce Canada, Sean Chilton.

Sean emphasized that Canada's health workforce is the heartbeat of the health system, and strengthening it requires intentional collaboration, evidence-informed implementation, and investment in trusted relationships.

He noted that the research underway through the Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation program is already shifting Canada "from fragmented pockets of innovation to a coordinated ecosystem of learning," particularly where teams are embedding research in real-world care settings, building strong partnerships, and aligning evidence with operational and policy windows. He underscored that workforce transformation requires collective effort, aligned interests, and a commitment to practical, scalable, people-centered solutions.

"We know that evidence influences policy – and when research and decision makers move in lockstep, we're more likely to succeed."

Acknowledgements

CIHR-IHSPR shares sincere thanks with all who participated in the Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation midterm workshop. CIHR-IHSPR is grateful to all its partners and facilitators who generously shared their time and expertise and whose involvement enriched the success of the workshop.

For more information, visit CIHR's Institute of Health Services and Policy Research.

Date modified:

2026-04-10