Special Collection on the Correctional Health Care Workforce

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a lingering impact on the health care workforce, including dire shortages across all health care settings and disciplines. Addressing workforce shortages in correctional health care settings is especially challenging as workforce design and development issues specific to these settings have not been well explored in the literature. Data describing the U.S. correctional health care workforce and workforce shortages, overall or by discipline, are largely unavailable. Additionally, recruitment and retention of this specialty workforce is particularly challenging given the realities of correctional health care as well misconceptions about this field.      

This special collection provides a forum for sharing information that describes the U.S. correctional health care workforce and highlights factors that contribute to or detract from effective workforce development. We seek to stimulate, disseminate, and accelerate innovative workforce practices in correctional health care settings. We hope that, drawing upon established evidence and emerging research, authors will generate recommendations for redesigning this workforce, improving recruitment and retention processes, and refocusing the organizational culture and academic partnerships to achieve better patient and population health outcomes. The goal is to develop a body of evidence that can be implemented, replicated, and built upon for correctional workforce development now and in the future.
     
We welcome manuscripts that contribute to the emerging evidence, provide models that can be replicated and evaluated for sustainable quality workforce development, and aim to advance the field through future, follow-up manuscripts. 

Example Topics for Consideration

Descriptions of the Correctional Health Care Workforce 

• Detailed descriptive studies of the current workforce (discipline-specific or multidisciplinary) workforce projections, staffing and delivery models, practice designs, and real or intended outcomes
• Estimates of staffing need and demand by factors such as geographic location, facility type, health care delivery model, and workforce characteristics
• Identification and study of the multiple factors contributing to recruitment, retention, and development of a sustainable correctional health care workforce

Workforce Research Methods for Correctional Settings

• Clarification of language and definitions across correctional health care disciplines
• Identification of measurable outcomes for correctional health care workforce studies
• Examples of evidence-based theoretical frameworks and planning models
• Studies with various designs utilized for pre-research, research, and performance improvement of the workforce
• Challenges and solutions for quantitative and qualitative methods for the conduct of rigorous workforce studies
• Discussion of ethical issues associated with conducting correctional health care workforce studies
• Strengths and challenges related to data and data sources, dashboards, and linkages to patient and organizational outcomes
• Planning tools, standardized instruments, and effective measures for workforce studies

Research and Educational Strategies

• Systematic reviews, scoping studies, and meta-analyses summarizing key concepts contributing to a deeper understanding of correctional health care workforce issues
• Analysis of national health care workforce trends and the potential implications for correctional settings
• Efficacy of educational solutions to workforce shortages, such as pipeline programs and professional development programs contributing to recruitment, retention, and planning for future staffing
• Use of new technology and simulation to estimate and expand the current and future supply of and demand for correctional health care workers by role or discipline, geographic location, and year

Workforce Development Strategies 

• Partnerships designed to address correctional health care workforce development, as well as their impact and sustainability
• Efficacy and comparison of health care workforce approaches tailored to meet the special needs of facilities and target patient populations
• Challenges, processes, and innovative solutions to address the correctional health care workforce shortages
• Manager and leader roles in facilitating organizational change to enhance workforce recruitment, retention, and development
• Best practices that balance the needs of the workforce and the organization while ensuring quality outcomes

Comprehensive Environmental Scan

• Impact of workforce design and care delivery models on patient outcomes (e.g., impact on clinical outcomes of patient transfers between carceral and clinical environments)  
• Impact of trends in the public sectors (social, technological, economic, and political) on the correctional health care workforce
• State or federal policy solutions, strategies, or processes that promise to support the quality and sustainability of the correctional health care workforce

Manuscript Submission
Prepare manuscripts using our Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Submit manuscripts to the Scholar One system using the category Special Collection: Workforce.

Manuscripts may be submitted beginning on March 1, 2024. Manuscripts will undergo the usual peer review process and, upon acceptance, will be published in the next regular journal issue. Published manuscripts will also be posted together as a special collection on the journal website. Please direct any questions to Editor-in-Chief AJ Harzke.