A community oriented definition of the health workforce and core competencies

Abstract

The health workforce has a significant role to play in supporting the development of healthy communities. Trends in medical education and health professions development are increasingly requiring that the range of professionals provide care within a community context. This paper reports on a preliminary study that asked community members, as well as public health administrators, medical providers and academics to define descriptively the individuals who provide care at the community level and the core set of competencies these workers should know. A key result was the wide description of the health workforce and the characterization of its core competencies as being related to the values and principles of healthy communities; collaborative, community-driven and process-oriented skills were emphasized by participants in the study. This affirms the direction leaders in health professions training have been moving. An action agenda is suggested for assessing the training issues that must be addressed in order to ensure each class of profession within the health workforce is able to demonstrate the core set of community competencies.

Key Words:

• Healthy communities
• workforce development
• competency definition
• Delphi research