Resource Spotlight: Health Professional School Leadership and Health Sector Reform, Performance, and Practice


 
Photo by Carol Bales, courtesy of Capacity<em>Plus</em>/IntraHealth International
Photo by Carol Bales,
courtesy of CapacityPlus/IntraHealth International

As countries transition to the post-Millennium Development Goal era, many will shift their national health policies. These changes could flow from traditional sources of health innovations, such as ministries of health, flagship hospitals and professional associations.

However, countries should not dismiss the leadership arising from health professional schools, write the authors of a recent CapacityPlus Technical Brief called Health Professional School Leadership and Health Sector Reform, Performance, and Practice.

Schools are an often overlooked source of leadership, but they display great influence, mainly because they produce a health system’s major input: health workers.

Health professional schools can provide leadership in three ways, the authors write:

  1. Providing expertise to ministries and other organizations exerting influence on the health sector
  2. Partnering with other schools and professional associations
  3. Working at the district, community, and facility levels

There needs to be a strong interface between the institutions charged with producing the nation’s health human capital—who not only produce most of the participants in the public and private health labor markets but also carry out critical national research—and leaders responsible for policy formulation and decisions about financing and service provision.

The paper provides examples of how many countries leverage their health professional schools to provide leadership and create change in the health sector.

View the Resource here.

For additional resources on these topics, please see the Education and Training, Planning and Stakeholders subject areas.

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