Latest Resources

Carmen Dolea of the World Health Organization talks about the challenge of retaining health workers in rural areas, and how CapacityPlus is helping to apply the WHO’s new retention recommendations. [from author]

The USAID-funded Capacity Project established the Global Alliance for Pre-Service Education (GAPS) to provide an online forum to discuss issues related to teaching and acquiring competence in family planning, with a focus on developing countries’ health related training institutions. The success of the Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery’s ongoing web-based community of practice provided a strong example of the successful use of this medium to reach many participants in a range of settings. [from abstract]

This Voices features Kayode Odusote’s experiences with helping West African countries to gather and use health worker data. [from publisher]

Interventions that have a better than random chance of increasing nurses’ use of research are important to the delivery of quality patient care. This article updates the evidence published in a previous systematic review on individual characteristics influencing research utilization by nurses. [from abstract]

This paper has two objectives: to identify the key challenges in HRH planning in Belgium and to formulate recommendations for an effective HRH planning, on the basis of the Belgian case study and lessons drawn from an international benchmarking. [from abstract]

This paper examines the issue of workforce stability and turnover in the context of policy attempts to improve retention of health workers. [from abstract]

Low-resource countries often carry the heaviest disease burden and maintain the smallest health workforce. The deadly cholera epidemic in Haiti is only the most recent example of how the time for ‘task shifting’ has arrived. [from author]

This paper we discusses the effect of feedback from current antiretroviral (ART) coverage to future ART human resources need on the sustainability of high levels of ART coverage.

The article describes CapacityPlus’s rapid retention survey tool for determining the relative importance health workers place on characteristics related to their choice of employment. This will allow human resource maangers to rapidly assess retention preferences to better pinpoint the incentives and interventions that would most cost-effecively motivate health workers to take up posts in underserved facilities. [adapted from abstract]

This study is an examination of the state of medical education in Sub-Saharan Africa including all countries, all identified and recognized schools, and all languages of instruction. The study was undertaken to help provide a platform of understanding regarding the status, trends and present and future capacity building efforts for educators, policy makers, and international organizations. [from summary]

This summary report on the global nursing workforce is the first output from a program of work examining the crucial issue of nursing shortages, and identifying a framework for policy interventions. [from summary]

This study investigated the change of awareness and perception towards gender-based violence (GBV) following a training project in Vietnam designed to educate health workers on the issues; evaluated changes in practice in integrating screening and treatment of GBV victims into medical and reproductive health services; and solicited recommendations from health staff about future GBV interventions. [adapted from author]

The HRDI project involves the collaboration of three institutions for the purpose of mobilizing the growing supply of health professionals well-trained in research, first to sustain their professional skills and development and second, to apply their skills to advance health and development in Viet Nam as effectively as possible.This report evaluates the impact of the Health (HRDI) project. [from introduction]

This resource package provides an overall approach to programming for training health care providers in reproductive health and family planning as well as information, methods, and tools for designing, developing, planning, implementing, and evaluating training. It also provides tools and information for strengthening training systems. [from introduction]

This report documents how the use of performance and quality improvement (PQI), a technique for achieving desired performance at service delivery sites and within communities, has helped to improve skilled attendance, and shares some lessons learned about how best to use PQI in safe motherhood programs. [adapted from aouthor]

This qualitative study explores the career preferences of under-training and in-service doctors and nurses and identifies factors important to them to take up rural service. It then develops a framework for clustering these complex attributes into potential incentive packages for better rural recruitment and retention. [from abstract]

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have become a very popular tool for decision making in healthcare. While there is some evidence that CPGs improve outcomes, there are numerous factors that influence their acceptability and use by healthcare providers. This study evaluates these issues in a representative sample of clinicians in Spain. [from abstract]

This commission, consisting of 20 professional and academic leaders from diverse countries, came together to develop a shared vision and a common strategy for postsecondary education in medicine, nursing, and public health that reaches beyond the confines of national borders and the silos of individual professions. This comprehensive framework considers the connections between education and health systems. [from summary]

This article assesses the effectiveness of village health volunteers in performing early diagnosis and treatment to reduce the burden of malaria in Loa PDR. [adapted from abstract]

The high perinatal and neonatal mortality rates in Pakistan are partially attributable to scarcity of trained skilled birth attendants and paucity of resources. Empowerment of health care providers with adequate knowledge and skills can serve as instrument of change. This training needs assessment analysis of the public health sector of Pakistan aims to recognize gaps in the processes and quality of MNCH care provided. [adapted from author]

This issue of GOHNET deals with the ongoing activities of institutions around the world with respect to work in the health worker sector. This focus is closely related to devising and implementing policy instruments on workers’ health of the WHO Global Plan of Action on Workers’ Health (2008-2017). [from author]

Despite being workers on the front line responding to the public’s HIV and TB care needs, health workers themselves often do not have access to HIV and TB services. These guidelines aim to protect, retain and empower health workers in dealing with the dual threat of HIV and TB and reinforce good practicies for health workers who are living with HIV and/or TB. [adapted from introduction]

This article presents a model for the development of sustainable primary health care in village communities in Honduras through the training and support of community health workers. [from author]

The purpose of this study is to review the research literature on the effectiveness of contracting-out of primary health care services and its impact on both program and health systems performance in low- and middle-income countries. [from abstract]

This policy brief describes an overview of systematic reviews of the effects of training, regulatory, financial and organizational mechanisms on the supply, distribution, efficiency and performance of health workers.