Physician workforce planning and boom–bust economic cycles: a retrospective on the Barer–Stoddart report

With limited control over After the publication of the report, the form of physician remuneration to better physi cian care spending, they wanted provincial and territorial Ministers of align with the type of services provided guidance on restraining the growth of Health met in Banff early in 1992. [...] isters analyzed the Barer–Stoddart report number of nurse practitioners and phys- Since universal hospital and medical recommendations and emerged from ician assistants in chronically underserved care had been introduced in the 1960s, the their meeting with 12 policy directions rural and remote areas of the country. [...] In the early 2000s, physician services could be coordinated population growth and the “needs com- provincial and territorial decision-makers with the economic cycle via changing position” of the population. [...] Since 2010, the Barer–Stoddart report policy problem of physician workforce It is important to remember that the has been somewhat less discussed, per- planning is once again pressing, given policy, regulatory and administrative haps owing to the relatively rapid growth the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, tools available to alter the supply of phys- of the per-capita supply of physicians in high. [...] Parts of the in some specialties and some areas of work–life balance.7 Barer–Stoddart report addressing the the country, any prospect of a potential One of the most important points chronic shortages faced by populations in surplus preoccupies both provincial and made by Barer and Stoddart was that underserved areas are as relevant today territorial governments and medical physician supply should.