Education and Training

This brief presents an overview of issues related to the production and training of health workers with suggested actions, key considerations, and resources. [from publisher]

Difficulties with transportability of qualifications and cross-accreditation are now recognised as key barriers to meeting the rapidly shifting international demands for health care providers. This paper outlines the shortfall of the current indicators in assisting the process of global certification and competency recognition in the health care workforce. [from abstract]

Areas of the Vietnam still experience severe shortages of health workers for reproductive health, particularly mountainous and other remote areas populated by ethnic minorities. This case study evaluates a program to lower maternal mortality rates and encourage healthier births in these areas through an 18 month training for ethic minority midwives. [adapted from author]

This report contains the results of an in-depth training needs assessment of Lesotho health workers foces on workers at the central and district level. [adapted from summary]

These standards were created to guide those who are responsible for planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating training programs of many types. The standards outline the elements that effective training and learning programs should include and serve as a foundation upon which curricula and programs should be developed, supported, and evaluated. [adapted from author]

This information brochure provides a background and overview of the World Health Organization’s effort to provide guidance on the transformative scale up of health professional education to increase the quantity, quality and relevance of health professionals to strengthen their impact on population health. [from publisher]

This chapter describes Zimbabwe’s experiences in developing national prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in-service and preservice training materials for facility and community-based health workers. It also discusses the specific challenges associated with training materials development in the context of the Zimbabwean national health system. [from author]

This document discusses strategies and experiences in developing training materials and approaches for the implementation of health worker training programs for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) and pediatric HIV care.

The need to strengthen health-care worker capacity was identified by the Botswana Ministry of Health and confirmed by a training needs assessment conducted in 2001. In response, Botswana embarked on the first phase of a national antiretroviral training program, which this document outlines. [adapted from author]

This article outlines a program developed to provide formal training for health workers in the Western Pacific to address HRH problems in the region, especially the adverse impact of both the absolute shortages of select health workers and the under-training of many of the current health workforce. [adapted from author]

This report summarizes the discussion and final recommendations from a meeting on integrating gender considerations into the curricula for health professional. It presents: an overview of experiences with integrating gender considerations into the curricula for health professionals; case examples; a synthesis of lessons learned about enabling conditions and strategies for integrating gender issues into the curricula of health professionals; and recommendations for core minimum gender competencies for health professionals. [adapted 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 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]

This document describes an approach to developing competencies that can guide interprofessional education and collaborative practice for all professions in a variety of contexts and is the first attempt to develop a Canadian model of interprofessional competencies that is applicable to all health professions. [from author]

This article describes a systematic process to develop and implement two strategic action plans focussing on competence development based on specific job descriptions. The approach was a change from only focussing on training, to a broader, long term approach to human resource development for comprehensive TB control. [adapted from abstract]

This paper examines aging of the general medical practitioner and specialist workforce in Australia and projects the numbers and timing of their retirement to 2025. It also discusses the impact that the retirement of experienced health care professionals has on the training requirements of the future health care workforce. [adapted from author]

This session will focus on different model programs incorporating novel techniques to optimize training of health workers. Discussion will include the realities of brain drain, health worker migration, and maintaining a vibrant health workforce. [from author]

The GO Tool is a comprehensive resource connecting health professions students to domestic and international reproductive health training opportunities. [from author]

CORE is an open access, cutting edge tool for building presentations on the full spectrum of reproductive health topics. It has sample slides for easy insertion into a presentation that users can download as well as fact sheets, activities, studies and other resources. [adapted from publisher]

This paper describes a programme in Zimbabwe aimed at responding more effectively to the HIV/AIDS epidemic by reinforcing a critical competence-based training institution and producing public health leaders. [adapted from abstract]

This paper illustrates how decision-makers can use evidence and tools from an equity-oriented toolkit to scale up training and education of health workers. [adapted from abstract]

The purpose of this paper is to present a complex yet transparent, computable model to simulate the regulation of the flow of personnel through a multiple-exit eye care training scheme linked to the health workforce. The proposed training system is based on the notion that all practitioners within eye care be trained with a selection of topics from a common set of competences. In theory this would allow any practitioner to increase his or her range of competences by both acquiring new ones and by lifting the standard of those already attained.

Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) is a cornerstone for successful implementation of prevention, care and support services among HIV negative and positive individuals. VCT is also perceived to be an effective strategy in risk reduction among sexually active young people. This study aimed to assess the acceptability of VCT and its actual uptake among young health care professional students. [adapted from abstract]

This presentation provdes users with a process for accomplishing an HRH situation analysis by identifying key information and through familiarization with analytical models to identify problems.

Ethiopia does not have a sufficient health care workforce to meet the population’s demand for services and the burden of disease. The objective of this project was to assess the usefulness and feasibility of collecting key participant and training information for monitoring and planning of HIV/AIDS services. This paper describes a project that uses training data to follow up with providers after training to assess whether they are still working in HIV/AIDS-related services. [adapted from introduction]

Medical doctors and nurses in Bangladesh are concentrated in urban secondary and tertiary hospitals, while 70% of the population lives in rural areas. This situation has created a major challenge for the national health system, particularly for reducing the high maternal mortality rate, with fewer than 20% of births being attended by a skilled birth attendant. The Declaration of Safe Motherhood was desgined to address this issue, supportetd by a number of national programs and strategies. [from summary]

This commentary outlines strategies the authors have found successful in aligning health education and training with local health needs in ways that demonstrate socially accountable outcomes for Vancouver Island, Canada. [adapted from abstract]

Empirical investigations of health worker training in Kenya have been limited to mappings of health service providers in terms of cadre and distribution and assessments of the training needs for various skills. However, there has not been a comprehensive study of the influence of training on the provision of quality Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC). We seek to fill this gap by assessing the link between health provider training and practice with regard to the provision of EmOC. [from author]

This study documents and assesses the impact of a major educational and support program on a change in the health service provision of a neonatal intensive care unit. [adapted from abstract]

Ethiopia’s poor health status is due primarily to communicable diseases, poor nutrition, and lack of access to health services in general and for most of the rural, nomadic pastoralist and fringe areas in particular. In response, the government has launched a Health Extension Program for which training of Health Extension Workers has been started. This study assesses the first year’s training program in terms of its inputs, processes and output. [from abstract]