The Norwegian health and social personnel forecast model (HELSEMOD), developed by Statistics Norway, looks at both demand and supply of health workforce.
The supply side analysis include:
- The size of the workforce in the health and social sector, register data reported annually to Statistics Norway;
- Average working hour for the health and social workforce;
- Number of students in health and social sciences, based on annual statistics from the register in the Ministry of Education and Research;
- The candidate production from educational institutions;
- The number of persons leaving the health and social labour marked because of death.
The demand side analysis include:
- Population size (the population is projected by age and sex at the national level up to and including the year 2100);
- Current utilisation patterns (multiple sources are used to disclose the current utilisation patterns);
- Changing utilisation patterns (the model only indirectly include the assumption that observed increase in utilisation of health services will continue in the projection time span as a part of general economic growth; progress as a result of new health technologies and research may entail higher demand in itself due to the new possibilities; on the other hand, improved health status in the general population may indicate that the need for health services does not increase as much as the rise in the number of for example elderly with high health care needs);
- Changes in health service delivery (some reforms are incorporated in the HELSEMOD 2012 model and in earlier version, for example the Coordination Reform which presumes that the municipalities will play an increasing part in meeting the growth in demand for health services; in order to include the reform into the analyses, Statistics Norway has assumed expansion of home nursing care, general practitioners, physiotherapy and in health promoting activities compared to the baseline alternative; another example is a long term national program to strengthen mental health care resulting in an increased supply of services, reflecting a former unmet need of mental health care);
- GDP/ health expenditure growth (the model assumes that positive economic growth will create higher expectations and utilisation of services beyond the impact of demographic changes).
It is mainly applicable for planning purposes of future health personnel capacity to cope with health care needs in the population. It is not a prognosis, but an exercise in disclosing what happens 20 years ahead under certain conditions. The model is based on alternative projections based on different assumptions, and offers different scenarios (i.e. high, medium, low) for the different approaches. The baseline year for the most recent projections is 2010, and the model projects the health care personnel needed towards 2035.
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