Tag: human resources for health

  • Mar 28, 2011

    Computerized Shortlisting Saves Time and Money, Gets Health Workers Where They Are Needed

    Dr. Grace Namaganda and Martin Namutso from the Uganda Capacity Program, and Andrew Abunyang, Richard Manano Keuber, and Achal John Baptist from the Public Service Commission contributed to this work. Like many developing countries, Uganda has a severe shortage of health workers. There is only 1 doctor and 13 nurses to care for every 10,000 Ugandans, far short of the 23 health workers the World Health Organization recommends. Currently, only 56% of approved health worker posts are filled with qualified workers [1] .   The challenge of filling the large number of empty positions has been compounded by the work involved in the hiring process. Previously, districts used a manual system of reviewing and shortlisting job candidate applications, which required substantial time to review every candidate’s resume and copy candidate details into a hard copy format. Recognizing the amount of time and energy invested in this system, the Uganda Capacity Program began collaborating with the Uganda Ministry of Public Service and the Public Service Commission to come up with a better, quicker way of using a computer program to aid human resources staff to quickly... Read More »

    Posted by Allan Agaba at 0 Comments

  • Feb 8, 2011

    Local Solutions, Global Solidarity, and Accountability

    While the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health was full of opportunities, it was also quite deficient in addressing the one global issue that continues to hold back progress to achieving most of the health goals—the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 8 : Global Partnership for Development. I do, however, remain optimistic. In my country, Kenya , there is considerable awareness of the health workforce problem and there is momentum to act on many fronts. The Capacity Kenya project has worked closely with the Ministry of Health and others to develop a national Human Resources for Health Strategic Plan, which established national priorities for addressing Kenya’s workforce constraints. Planned targets range from increasing number of workers, improving retention, quantity and quality of training and development programs, improving performance, and ensuring a sustained investment in the health workforce. I am happy that there was a vibrant discussion at the Global Forum on how to strengthen coordination and develop clear indicators for measuring progress. Kenya, one of the 57 health workforce crisis countries, requires significant resource... Read More »

    Posted by Meshack Ndolo at 0 Comments

  • Jan 28, 2011

    Exploring the Siriraj Hospital at the Second Global Forum on HRH

    This post was originally published on the Capacity Plus blog . Despite the 6:30 a.m. reporting time, the field trip to Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok—part of the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health —turned out to be one of the best events of the week. Siriraj Hospital, part of Mahidol University, is the oldest and largest hospital in Thailand. We were told that the attached medical school produces about a quarter of all Thai medical graduates. Besides its numerical strength, the school also pays great attention to a number of issues relevant to the transformative scale-up of health worker education . Changing the urban/rural maldistribution Acknowledging the gross disparity in health worker density between urban and rural areas, the medical school has introduced two initiatives that encourage rural practice among medical school graduates. First, it mandates that all medical school graduates complete a three-year rotation in a rural area. Second, the Faculty of Medicine started a rural-track medical degree that enrolls students from rural areas. These students then undergo their practical education in rural... Read More »

    Posted by Shaun Noronha at 0 Comments

  • Jan 26, 2011

    Knowing How to Make People Happy: Reflections on Health Worker Motivation

    Today, Barbara Stilwell writes from the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Bangkok about ways to find out what makes health workers happy. Stilwell discusses a  workshop on the Discrete Choice Experiment, which is a method for determining preferences among a target study population and then weighing how important each of those preferences really are by forcing a person to make a ‘trade-off.’ She points to this work as well as work in Botswana that help understand health workers’ personal and professional motivations. Read the complete piece in the Global Health Magazine.

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    Posted by IntraHealth at 1 Comments

  • Oct 4, 2010

    Ensuring a Legacy: The Health Workforce Component of the Global Health Initiative

    Maurice I. Middleberg When we talk about the “health workforce crisis” or “human resources for health,” this abstract language can obscure the suffering of people in need. A woman dies in labor because she can’t reach a properly trained and supported health worker. A child succumbs to pneumonia. A farmer is felled by malaria. A minor injury at work becomes a badly infected wound. The cost in death, pain, disrupted families, and lost productivity mounts. All of this can be prevented or treated by introducing a skilled health worker. The US Government’s Global Health Initiative has commendable goals and targets , including “Increased numbers of trained health workers and community workers appropriately deployed in the country.” And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently spoke eloquently of our national commitment to global health, saying that “Few investments are more consistent with all of our values and few are more sound.” But our goals and values will not be realized where there is no health worker. The GHI can be achieved only if health workers are present. The basic tenets of a health... Read More »

    Posted by Maurice I. Middleberg at 0 Comments

  • Sep 2, 2010

    A trio of useful HRH resources

  • Aug 9, 2010

    Training Health Workers: We Need Practical and Long-Term Solutions

    This month’s Health Affairs issue “ Lessons from Around the World ” highlights some of the most pressing issues in health systems strengthening and human resources for health. The popular press quickly picked up the findings that the quality of care offered by foreign-born doctors trained abroad is on par with American doctors trained in the States. This doesn’t surprise me. Many of the health workers who migrate here are among the brightest and most ambitious. The article reminded me that nearly a quarter of physicians practicing in the United States were born and trained elsewhere. What does this mean for the health systems and communities they left behind? We talk too little about how the unmet demand for doctors and especially nurses in developed countries contributes to the drain of desperately-needed health workers from developing countries. A recent report from the World Health Organization documents the common migration pattern among health workers in developing countries from rural areas to small and then larger cities and then abroad to wealthier countries, which is leaving as many as a billion people without access to health... Read More »

    Posted by Pape Gaye at 1 Comments

  • Jul 23, 2010

    Bottlenecks: Addressing the AIDS Epidemic Through Increasing Human Resources for Health

    Nola Bower-Smith In a world where over 33 million people are living with AIDS it is imperative to address the human resources for health (HRH) crisis. The critical questions and solutions generated by this discussion are a step towards a world without AIDS. I had the opportunity to attend a panel at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna that focused on strategies for the HRH crisis. The panelists agreed that HRH is a critical problem, but one without an easy or quick solution. The lack of human resources, especially in areas most affected by HIV and AIDS, has made combating the disease a challenging and complex problem. Tactics Educational scale up, increasing quality of educational institutions, “sandwich” programs sending students abroad during clinical training, and social accountability tactics to encourage staying in-country to work were among suggestions posed by panelist Fitzhugh Mullan. The solutions posed by Wendy Dhlomo-Pmhatswe focused on efficiency—leveraging the current system, using the current workforce more efficiently, improving quality and efficiency of care, improving delivery of care and intervention,... Read More »

    Posted by Nola Bower-Smith at 0 Comments