2022-2024 Workforce Planning and Implementation

On Friday, April 1, 2022, the Executive Office of Health & Human Services (EOHHS), the Office of the Post-Secondary Commissioner (OPC), and the Department of Labor and Training (DLT) – in partnership with the Rhode Island Foundation – co-hosted a Healthcare Workforce Summit that brought together healthcare and education providers, policymakers, and labor and community partners for a data-driven, collaborative, facilitated process to identify short-term and longer-term solutions to Rhode Island’s significant healthcare workforce challenges.

Just six weeks later, more than 100 representatives of health and human services partners came together online for a Health Workforce Plenary Session to launch a public/private health workforce planning and implementation process. EOHHS Secretary Ana Novais, Postsecondary Commissioner Shannon Gilkey, and Governor's Workforce Board Executive Director Alyssa Alvarado each noted the urgency of Rhode Island's health workforce challenges and emphasized the commitment of State leaders to address these challenges by supporting the planning and implementation work of the following Workgroups.

Please note that as of 2023, this initiative has consolidated the 'pathways & pipelines' and 'higher education partnerships' workgroups into a single workgroup: "Career Pathways, Pipelines, & Higher Education Partnerships"

  • Health & Human Services Career Pathways & Pipelines Workgroup

    Ensure a sufficient supply of health and human services workers by providing students, job seekers, and incumbent workers with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to obtain employment and advance in their careers.
  • Health & Human Services Partnerships with Higher Education

    Build engaged and enduring partnerships across and among Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) and health & human service providers to anticipate and address the training and education needs of health and human services agencies and staff.
  • Health & Human Services Workforce Data Collection & Analytics

    Identify and develop resources needed for RI to collect and analyze current workforce supply and projected workforce demand across all occupations, specialization, sectors, geography, etc. – with a particular focus on racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity – to ensure that providers and patients/clients have the health and human service workforce they need.

Each Workgroup has generated several short-term and longer-term initiatives to address related health & human services workforce challenges.  Learn more about current Workgroups, Subcommittees, and Projects.

Health & Human Services Workforce Planning Core Principles:

  1. Building a Robust and Adaptive Workforce: The ultimate objective of each workgroup is to help build and sustain a health workforce that is sufficiently sized and well trained, that has access to appropriate career advancement opportunities, and that is able to adapt to the changing needs of Rhode Islanders, while delivering high quality and high value care.
  2. Centering Work on Ensuring a More Equitable Workforce: Workgroups should focus on addressing the root causes of why the state’s health workforce does not sufficiently reflect all Rhode Islanders, which, in turn, underlie disparate access and health inequalities. Across all workgroups there should be an overall emphasis on reorienting systems to better address barriers to increasing cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity within the state’s health workforce.
  3. Focusing on Improvements to System Sustainability: Each workgroup should consider the need for a sustainable health delivery system in Rhode Island, which encompasses a workforce that is appropriately compensated and supported, as well as the systems and supports necessary to allow service providers to continue to deliver first class care.