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Private health professional schools are expanding rapidly. With health training needs increasing and developing country budgets not keeping pace, private-sector schools will soon produce more health workers than public-sector institutions. This free eLearning course explores critical success factors in private-sector health education and training that are also relevant to public institutions. This course is targeted at learners who are directly engaged in private health learning institutions as well those who are charged with making health and education public policy.

The bottom of the pyramid concept suggests that profit can be made in providing goods and services to poor people, when high volume is combined with low margins. To-date there has been very limited empirical evidence from the health sector concerning the scope and potential for such bottom of the pyramid models. This paper analyzes private for-profit (PFP) providers currently offering services to the poor on a large scale, and assesses the future prospects of bottom of the pyramid models in health. [from abstract]

Here we suggest several different mechanisms through which such links could be developed or enhanced, including: provision of relevant health solutions, applied research, cultural alignment and the development of collaborative networks. The Islamic tradition promotes the practice of medicine as a service to humanity. Physical and spiritual wellbeing are intimately related in popular Muslim consciousness. Thoughtful Health Diplomacy therefore has the potential to bridge the perceived divides between Western and predominantly Muslim nations. [from abstract]

The paper proposes experimentation with country-specific market data platforms that can integrate relevant evidence from different data sources, and simultaneously exploring strategies to secure better information on private providers and health markets. [from abstract]

This roundtable discussion offers diverse perspectives from a range of stakeholders - a health funder, a representative from an implementing organization, a national-level policy-maker, and an expert working in a large multi-national company - on what the future may hold for the private sector in health. [from introduction]

This manual provides an overview of core statistical and econometric methods for program impact evaluation (and, more generally, causal modelling). More detailed and advanced than typical brief reviews of the subject, it also strives to be more approachable to a wider range of readers than the advanced theoretical literature on program impact evaluation estimators. It thus forms a bridge between more basic treatments of the essentials of impact evaluation methods and the more advanced discussions. [from abstract]

This fact sheet was developed by teams of Guatemalan public health professionals who participated long-term capacity building process to promote secondary analysis of the National Maternal and Child Health Survey 2008-2009 (Encuesta Nacional de Salud Materno Infantil – ENSMI 2008-2009) [from abstract]

This manual provides guidance for community care workers and other wardens of orphans and other vulnerable children who intend to use the Child Status Index tool. [from abstract]

Methods for monitoring and evaluating HIV prevention are urgently needed. Because resources for interventions are limited, there is an urgent need to focus interventions where they are most cost-effective. The approach taken in the PLACE method is to identify priority prevention areas and within these areas identify public places (such as hotels, bars, and events) where people meet new sexual partners. These places are potential intervention venues where the individuals most likely to transmit HIV can be accessed. Venues and events are identified by informants in the community.

This document reports on the assessment findings that serve as a basis for formulating interventions to improve the HMIS performance and as a baseline for future monitoring of HMIS performance improvement in the zones. Additionally, lessons learned from this assessment will further inform needed modifications and/or adaptations of the HMIS performance assessment tools to be used for assessments in the remaining zones of SNNPR. [from introduction]

In an environment of limited resources, educational institutions must be creative in finding financial resources. This free eLearning course provides an overview of creative financing mechanisms designed to help a health professional education institution reach its funding goals. Participants will learn how to select, prioritize, and implement new financing mechanisms. [from publisher]

As part of ongoing efforts to restructure the health sector and improve health care quality, the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) in Namibia sought to update staffing norms for health facilities. To establish an evidence base for the new norms, the MoHSS supported the first-ever national application of the Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) method, a human resource management tool developed by the World Health Organization. [from abstract]

This report includes an updated, detailed profile for each of the 75 Countdown countries, which together account for more than 95% of the global burden of maternal, newborn and child death. The report shows that progress has been impressive in some areas, but it also highlights the vast areas of unfinished business that must be prioritized in the post-2015 framework. [adapted from introduction]

Nursing students may exhibit the characteristics of resistance to stress, such as hardiness, which can reduce the risk of burnout. However, we found only one published study about these phenomena among nursing students. Thus, we investigated the association between hardiness and burnout in such students. [from abstract]

This study aimed to reveal nurses’ experiences and perceptions of turnover in Australian hospitals and identify strategies to improve retention, performance and job satisfaction. [from abstract]

The aim of the study was to investigate nurses’ and care workers’ experiences of spiritual needs among residents with dementia in nursing homes. Nurses claim to practice holistic nursing. [from abstract]

An overview of iHRIS Train, open source software for managing data on the education of health professionals. iHRIS Train is part of the iHRIS software for health workforce management. [from publisher]

CapacityPlus compiled and analyzed literature on gender discrimination in higher education, including health worker preservice education. Additional information was gathered by contacting institution staff and reviewing institutional websites. Presented at the 2014 Prince Mahidol Award Conference in Pattaya, Thailand on January 27–31, 2014, this poster summarizes the review, highlights lessons learned by the Kenya Medical Training College, and recommends key actions that stakeholders can take at institutional and governmental levels to counter gender discrimination.

To help make it possible for nursing and midwifery students to continue (or begin) their training, CapacityPlus provided 204 financial scholarships to the students most in need. On December 18, 2013, the school hosted a ceremony to award scholarships to recipients—who comprise 37% of the student body—and to receive new equipment and supplies

CapacityPlus, with the USAID ASSIST Project and the World Bank, cohosted a knowledge-sharing and dissemination event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on February 18. The three-hour program focused on the latest evidence from country applications of innovations to strengthen health workforce recruitment, retention, and productivity. [from introduction]

This paper proposes a framework for tracking country and global progress towards UHC [Universal Health Coverage]; its aim is to inform and guide these discussions and assessment of both aggregate and equitable coverage of essential health services as well as financial protection. Monitoring progress towards these two components of UHC will be complementary and critical to achieving desirable health outcome goals, such as ending preventable deaths and promoting healthy life expectancy and also reducing poverty and protecting household incomes. [from abstract]

Argentina’s Plan Nacer provides insurance for maternal and child health care to uninsured families. This paper analyzes the impact of Plan Nacer on birth outcomes. The analysis uses data from the universe of birth records in seven Argentine provinces for 2004 to 2008 and exploits the geographic phasing in of Plan Nacer over time. [adapted from abstract]

This paper describes and analyzes Andhra Pradesh’s Aarogyasri scheme [in India], which covers against the costs of around 900 high-cost procedures delivered in secondary and tertiary hospitals. Using a new household survey, the authors find that 80 percent of families are eligible, equal to about 68 million people, and 85 percent of these families know they are covered; only one-quarter, however, know that the benefit package is limited. [adapted from abstract]

Using data from an experimental supportive intervention to India’s malaria control program, this paper studies the impact of leveraging local non-state capacity to promote mosquito net usage and recommended fever care-seeking patterns. The supportive activities were conducted simultaneously by three nongovernmental organizations in two endemic districts in the state of Orissa. The study finds that program impact varied significantly by location. [from abstract]

This paper reports the results of a cluster randomized control trial in which 3,000 households in 20 communes in Vietnam were randomly assigned at baseline to a control group or one of three treatments: an information leaflet about Vietnam’s government-run scheme and the benefits of health insurance; a voucher entitling eligible household members to 25 percent off their annual premium; and both. [from abstract]