Development of Enriched Core Competencies for Health Services and Policy Research

Abstract

The results offer an expanded view of potential career paths for HSPR doctoral graduates and provide recommendations for an expanded set of core competencies that will better equip graduates to maximize their impact on the health system.

Training for Impact: PhD Modernization as a Key Resource for Learning Health Systems

“…They find that employment in academic positions has declined over time and that today' s graduates are more likely than past graduates to work in a variety of sectors and roles that stretch well beyond academia to include government, healthcare delivery and the not-for-profit and private sectors. This finding is in line with early work from the CHSPRA Training Modernization Working Group (TMWG), which described different career trajectories and role archetypes (Bornstein et al 2018;CHSPRA TMWG 2015).…”

Developing Competencies for Health System Impact: Early Lessons learned from the Health System Impact Fellows

“…An enriched core competency framework for health services and policy research (HSPR) doctoral and post-doctoral training was introduced in Canada in 2016 (Bornstein et al 2018;CHSPRA TMWG 2015). Its goal was to align the competencies emphasized in doctoral curriculum with the skills needed to maximize the impact of health services and policy research (HSPR) graduates in the diverse range of employment sectors and roles they are entering based on employment trends (see McMahon et al 2019b) and emerging career opportunities, such as embedded scientist roles within organizations seeking to be learning health systems (Reid 2016).…”

Training for Health System Improvement: Emerging Lessons from Canadian and US Approaches to Embedded Fellowships

“…Given the diversity of organizations involved in the HSI Fellowship program and differences in these organizations' previous experience with and capacity for research, additional guidance regarding research processes and outputs, strategies for dual health system and academic mentorship and models of successful partnerships with universities could be beneficial. It has been recognized in both Canada and the US that the work environments in health system organizations differ from the university settings in which doctoral students are currently trained and that the skill set required to contribute to and lead transformative change within these organizations differs from those emphasized in most doctoral programs (Bornstein et al 2018;Hamelin and Paradis 2018;Kanani et al 2017;Paradis et al 2017;Reid 2016;Tamblyn et al 2016b) and from those currently prioritized and rewarded within academic institutions (Hunter 2019;Marshall et al 2016). Many PhD graduates have extensive academic training but lack experience working in other settings.…”