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This paper discusses global, regional and national perspectives of traditional medicine development and efforts that have been directed towards bridging the gap between traditional health practitioners and scientists/biomedical heath practitioners in contemporary health research in Tanzania. [from abstract]

The objective of the study reported in this article was to highlight the private sector contribution in the provision of essential obstetric care in Abia State, Southeastern Nigeria. [adapted from abstract]

This HRH policy document addresses the production and utilization of Human Resources within the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone. It also responds to the contemporary challenges and developments including the exodus of human resources and advancement in technology. This policy intends to regulate and direct planning, production, management, utilization and monitoring of HR within the health sector. [from foreword]

The shortfall of health personnel continues to represent one of the major constraints to the development of health services and access to basic health care in Sierra Leone. The plan contains an analysis of the current situation with a focus on the distribution of Health Personnel, the current stock, wastage, outputs from training schools, dropout rates and human resources policies currently obtained in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. It also projects future requirements based on the recommended establishment. [from preface]

This report summarizes the findings and conclusions of [a baseline study and a three-day stakeholder workshop on productivity]. Specifically, we present the baseline study findings, identify areas where current productivity falls short of desired levels, consider the root causes of identified productivity gaps and offer practical recommendations for feasible management interventions to improve productivity. We conclude with a short-term action plan for moving forward with implementation activities. [from introduction]

The practical, up-to-date guidance in this new handbook will help to improve the quality of family planning services and maximize people’s access to them. It can help family planning providers to assist clients choosing a family planning method, to support effective use, and to solve clients’ problems. [from foreword]

Women with HIV have much the same reasons to have children or to prevent pregnancy as everyone else, but they have important additional issues to consider. These women’s health care providers have the responsibility to help them make well-informed and well-considered choices and carry out their decisions with the least risk.

This report summarizes the speeches and discussions from the Practice to Policy: Global Perspectives in Nursing conference in 2006. Both healthcare professionals and th system are faced with a number of ongoing challenges, which may require a shift in organizational policy and can affect the way nurses practice. Nurses are and integral part of the healthcare system and play a key role in influencing these changes. Nurses’ voices need to be heard, and they must be able to articulate what they do.

This guide is intended for people responsible for in-service training at any first-level health facility dedicated to the care of persons with sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It aims to equip the user with the skills and information needed to train all relevant clinicians and service providers in the management of persons with STIs, including syndromic management. It also suggests a number of ways the training could be adapted to respond best to local needs. It provides practical advice and information to help you plan and execute the training and assess outcomes effectively

This manual is designed to be a resource for trainers who lead training-of-trainers courses in the field of reproductive health. It is designed to provide trainers with all of the instructions and materials they need to help learners strengthen their training, communication and facilitation knowledge and skills, and to enable them to plan and implement more effective training courses. [author’s description]

This module is intended to equip instructors with basic theory to train health workers in a life cycle approach to women’s nutrition. Women’s nutrition and care in the context of HIV and AIDS is integrated into the module. Health workers will apply the knowledge and skills in negotiation and interpersonal communication to help mothers and caregivers care for their own nutritional needs and feed their infants and young children optimally. [publisher’s description]

The experience of the Training in Health and Environmental Health in the Caribbean Community project has demonstrated that distance education techniques is an effective medium through which participants in more than eleven countries can be brought together to be educated on topics that are significant to both the region and to individual countries. This paper examines the means through which individuals are educated and meaningful communication among them facilitated.

The peculiarities of the scattered small states of the Caribbean region call for a model of training practitioners that is effective, relevant and sustainable. Distance education (DE) as an approach offers advantages that meet some of the challenges inherent in training family physicians for the region. This paper examines some of these challenges and shows where DE is being used to structure delivery of the programme. In particular, the need for context-specific training, managing time strictures and the cost issues of training are discussed. [from abstract]

The Ministry of Health Manpower Development Centre in Uganda has been carrying out training of health workers as part of their continuing education using both distance education and conventional methods since 1989. It was important, therefore, to develop a comprehensive documentation of the distance learning programmes in order to show the effectiveness and potential of distance education in upgrading medical personnel as compared to other approaches. [from author]

Health workers attending overseas universities may be less likely to return home. One response is to improve course provision and professional updating opportunities in-country. Leeds Metropolitan University, with funding from the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission under their distance learning initiative, runs a tailor-made MSc Public Health (Environmental Health and Health Promotion) in Zambia, for nurse tutors, clinical officers and environmental health workers. Using locally relevant curricula, with community-based, student centred, problem-solving approaches, retention may be improved. This paper will discuss how the course is delivered in Zambia, how the partnership developed such as to enable effective delivery of the course, and how sustainable learning can be achieved in a developing country in partnership with a UK University. [from abstract]

This tool provides a process for periodically reviewing and revising training sessions or courses in a systematic manner. [author’s description]

This Self-Assessment Inventory outlines the major areas of competence an effective supervisor must have. The competency areas are sub-divided into categories which correspond to the major functions supervisors perform. Its primary use is as a self-assessment tool. Individuals are encouraged to use it to assess their competence and performance as supervisors and use the results to develop a plan for improvement. This Inventory can also be used as a guide to curriculum development for Supervisory Training, using the components as the basis for a needs assessment exercise. [purpose]

This study set out to characterise the nature and extent of discriminatory practices and attitudes in the health sector, and indicate possible contributing factors and intervention strategies. [from author]

The checklist is intended as a self-assessment tool for managers to use in gauging how well their facility (hospital, clinic, or department) reaches, serves, and treats HIV-positive patients. This gives managers an opportunity to identify institutional strengths and weaknesses, consider ways to address the weaknesses, and later to assess progress toward PLHA-friendliness. The Checklist is designed in a simple format that can be readily adapted for each unique context. [from introduction]

Hospital managers who used a checklist to assess their facilities’ policies and practices took action to improve staff safety and reduce AIDS-related stigma. Findings suggest that the actions taken, including education, training, policy formulation, and involvement of AIDS NGOs, contributed to improved knowledge, attitudes, and practices among health workers. UNAIDS has recognized the intervention as a best practice, and NACO has endorsed the intervention’s tools and approaches. [author’s description]

Since the late 1990s, Malawi’s public health services have appeared to be heading for collapse due to declining staffing levels. The government launched the Essential Health Package in 2004 to help improve the health of the population, which includes scaling-up HIV and AIDS-related services. The biggest challenge facing the initiative is improving human resource levels. [adapted from author]

Ongoing violence and several natural disasters have taken their toll on mental health in Pakistan. But a shortage of mental-health professionals and lack of access to psychological services means the needs of the Pakistani population are not being met. [adapted from author]

This toolkit explores the nurse/workplace interface, overlapping factors that shape nurses’ work environments, the cost of unhealthy workplaces, and the characteristics and benefits of positive practice environments. A list of recommended actions and tools to help nurses negotiate for improved environments is also included. [from introduction]

Rural background and training have previously been found to increase the likelihood of rural practice. However, practitioners of many health professions remain in shortage in rural and remote Australia. This study builds on previous work in that it includes medical, nursing and allied health professions, considers the role of the health professional’s family in employment decisions, and includes a broader array of factors influencing employment preference and the preferred location of practice. The survey also examines when students might work in a rural area. [introduction]

This article presents the result of a literature review examining possible ways to improve healthcare services in rural areas. [from abstract]

Australian remote area nurses (RANs) are specialist advanced practice nurses. They work in unique, challenging and sometimes dangerous environments to provide a diverse range of healthcare services to remote and predominantly Aboriginal communities. There is an emerging skills gap in the remote nursing workforce as experienced and qualified RANs leave this demanding practice. There is a shortage of new nurses interested in working in these areas, and many of those who enter remote practice leave after a short time. Distance management was examined in order to gain a better understanding of its effects on the retention of RANs. Distance management in this context occurs when the health service’s line management team is located geographically distant from the workplace they are managing. [introduction]

Rising health care costs and the need to consolidate expertise in tertiary services have led to the centralisation of services. In the UK, the result has been that many rural maternity units have become midwife-led. A key consideration is that midwives have the skills to competently and confidently provide maternity services in rural areas, which may be geographically isolated and where the midwife may only see a small number of pregnant women each year. Our objective was to compare the views of midwives in rural and urban settings, regarding their competence and confidence with respect to competencies identified as being those which all professionals should have in order to provide effective and safe care for low-risk women.

Despite the usefulness of voluntary counselling and testing centres implemented in Africa, their limited capacity does not allow for vast testing of the general population. Therefore, in order to increase the number of individuals tested for HIV with the aim of enhancing the scaling up, we developed a strategy based on bringing the healthcare package much closer to the people, by using mobile HIV testing units. We herein report the Cameroon experience of mobile HIV testing unit strategy, demonstrating its effectiveness in reaching a great number of individuals, including those without usual access to HIV testing facilities. [abstract]

This article summarizes and comments on the available literature on the effectiveness of intrventions designed to change [health worker] professional behaviour in order to bring evidence into practice in developing countries. [from abstract]

This Issues in Health Economics presents the main conclusions of an international literature review of policies designed to tackle geographical inequalities in the distribution of health professionals. [author’s description]