Why the study?
The heart failure physician workforce in Canada has not grown to meet the increasing burden of heart failure, creating a critical gap in care capacity.
This national consensus report provides a strategic framework and actionable recommendations to address the growing crisis in the Canadian heart failure physician workforce.
Signals urgent HF physician shortage in Canada; leaves open which proposed solutions will prove effective.
Heart failure (HF) is a major contributor to morbidity, mortality, and health care resource use in Canada. Despite its growing burden, the HF physician workforce has not grown to meet this increasing demand. Recognizing this critical gap, the Canadian Heart Failure Society convened a national workforce committee to identify key drivers of the HF workforce crisis and propose actionable solutions. This committee brought together 16 diverse Canadian physicians from across the cardiac care continuum. Through a structured interview and consensus-building process, the group examined systemic issues such as insufficient and inflexible training pathways, remuneration inequities, lack of job visibility, deficient mentorship, burnout, and workforce attrition. Each issue was mapped to tailored interventions and categorized by impact and implementation effort. Proposed interventions include revising cardiology fellowship curricula to strengthen core HF competencies, developing flexible hybrid training models, advocating for complex care compensation modifiers, improving visibility and access to job opportunities, formalizing mentorship incentives, and promoting physician well-being and career longevity. The committee also proposed tools for national coordination, including an HF job board, mentorship networks, advocacy toolkits, and economic impact analyses. This paper offers a comprehensive framework for stabilizing and strengthening the HF workforce in Canada and is intended for stakeholders in clinical care, education system planning, and policy. This is the first national consensus effort to address physician-level barriers in Canadian HF care, offering strategic and implementable recommendations to sustain and grow the HF workforce in alignment with current and future health system demands.
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Almufleh et al. (2025) studied Heart failure physician workforce crisis (n=16). Workforce interventions (e.g., revised curricula, flexible training, compensation modifiers) was evaluated on Consensus recommendations for stabilizing and strengthening the HF workforce. A national committee of 16 Canadian physicians proposed a comprehensive framework of interventions, including revised training and compensation models, to stabilize and grow the heart failure workforce.
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