The Canadian Society of Cardiac Surgeons perspective on the cardiac surgery workforce in Canada

Abstract

As the professional society representing cardiac surgeons in Canada, the Canadian Society of Cardiac Surgeons (CSCS) recognizes the importance of maintaining a stable cardiac surgical workforce. The current reactive approach to health human resource management in cardiac surgery is inadequate and may result in significant misalignment of cardiac surgeon supply and demand. The availability of forecasting models and high quality, consistent data on productivity, workload, utilization, and demand is a prerequisite for our profession's capacity to predict and plan for changes in health human resources. The CSCS recognizes that improved workforce management is a key component to providing optimal cardiac surgical care for Canadians in the future and has developed the recommendations in this document as a call to action to interested stakeholders and policymakers to bring substantial improvements to health human resource management in cardiac surgery.