Service Delivery

Progress on Global Access to HIV Antiretroviral Therapy: A Report on "3 by 5" and Beyond

This report describes global progress on the “3 by 5” (Treating 3 million by 2005: making it happen) project in scaling up access to [HIV/AIDS] antiretroviral therapy and outlines the areas in which important progress has been made and lessons learned. It also outlines the remaining challenges and roadblocks to treatment access. [author’s description]

Chapter 2 (Strengthening Health Systems) provides an overview of HRH related approaches and progress.

Global Religious Health Assets Mapping

GRHAM is a CCIH initiative, in collaboration with numerous partners, to increase the awareness of Faith-based Organizations (FBOs) in providing essential health services around the world. GRHAM strives to put FBOs and Christian Health Associations (CHAs) “on the map” to improve networking, including collaboration with and between christian health associations, medical missions, ministries of health and multilateral donors. [from website description]

Integrating TB and HIV Care in Mozambique: Lessons from an HIV Clinic in Beira

In Mozambique, [Health Alliance International] HAI has been working closely with the MOH for more than fifteen years to support the development and implementation of MOH programs in reproductive health, the response to HIV/AIDS, and malaria control… HAI works with the MOH to implement the nationally designed model of HIV care, and has supported the implementation of voluntary counseling and testing centers, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) PROGRAMS, and HIV treatment centers integrated into this public sector model of care. [publisher’s description]

Improving Health Services and Strengthening Health Systems: Adopting and Implementing Innovative Strategies

In recent years, a number of specific strategies for improving health services and strengthening health systems have been consistently advocated. In order to advise governments, WHO commissioned this exploratory study to examine more closely the track record of these strategies in twelve low-income countries. [author’s description]

Tools for Planning and Developing Human Resources for HIV/AIDS and Other Health Services

The tools and guidelines collected in this book will assist health program managers, policymakers, and leaders to assess the impact of HIV/AIDS on the health workforce and its capacity to deliver and scale up HIV/AIDS services. The book provides materials to help decision-makers develop a strategy to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS, for both a short-term emergency response and a longer-term plan to strengthen HRM systems. This compilation also includes a tool developed by the World Health Organization to help HIV/AIDS programs to achieve a more sustainable workforce appropriately trained to provide ART.

Using Mystery Clients: A Guide to Using Mystery Clients

Mystery clients are trained people (usually community members) who visit program facilities in the assumed role of clients, and then report (by completing a survey or through an interview) on their experience. They might be used in an effort to avoid the bias in the service delivery process that often results from having service transactions observed. Mystery clients can also serve to gather a sufficient number of observations of service transactions when the actual volume of service visits is low. [publisher’s description]

Conditions, Constraints, and Strategies for Increased Contribution of General Practitioners to the Health System in Thailand

This paper analyzes the present situation of general practitioners in the Thai health care system and the conditions under which their contribution could be strengthened. [from abstract]

On the Front Line of Primary Health Care: The Profile of Community Health Workers in Rural Quechua Communities in Peru

The objective of this study was to describe the profile of community health workers - health promoters, traditional birth attendants and traditional healers - in rural Quechua communities from Ayacucho, Peru.

Ghana Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Initiative: Fostering Evidence-Based Organizational Change and Development in a Resource-Constrained Setting

An approach to evidence-based policy development has been launched in Ghana which bridges the gap between research and programme implementation. The Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Initiative has employed strategies tested in the successful Navrongo experiment to guide national health reforms that mobilize volunteerism, resources, and cultural institutions for supporting community-based primary health care.

Strengthening Decentralization at the Local Level

All decentralization initiatives require making changes in the structure of the agency or organization, which means making changes in how the work gets done. It means developing new management systems, training staff in the skills that they will need to perform in their new roles, designing or modifying service delivery systems, and developing strategies for enhancing the long-term sustainability of the program.

Specific Programs and Human Resources: Addressing a Key Implementation Constraint

Specific programs for selected diseases are an important component of the national and international health agenda. But in many developing countries, such programs fail to reach their full potential because of either insufficient implementation capacity or the lack of an integrated approach. For disease control programs to work, attention must be paid to human resources management.

This paper explores human resources constraints with regards to specific disease control programs, and provides an inventory of strategies to overcome these constraints. The paper is an edited version of the report on the meeting of the working group “Priority Diseases,” one of the seven working groups of the Joint Learning Initiative. The Joint Learning Initiative was set up to explore strategies to improve health services delivery through human resources management. [Publisher’s description]

Primary Health Care in Mozambique: Service Delivery in a Complex Hierarchy

This report presents findings from a nationwide Expenditure Tracking and Service Delivery Survey implemented in Mozambique between August and October 2002. The study focuses on the primary health care system, which is frequently the only source of health care for most Mozambicans. The report covers a broad set of issues, including institutional context, budget management, cost recovery, allocation and distribution of drugs, human resources, infrastructure and equipment, and service outputs. [from abstract]

Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI): Is it a New Model for Effective Public Private Cooperation in International Public Health?

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) was established in 1999 to finance and speed the delivery of new and improved vaccines for children in the developing world. Through collaborative leadership and international funding, GAVI aims to improve health in developing countries, increase international public health equity, and serve as a model for others in the global health community. However, this paper questions the extent to which GAVI can actually achieve its goals.

Scaling Up HIV/AIDS Care: Service Delivery and Human Resources Perspectives

Results of a study of human resources and antiretroviral therapy (ART) at 41 sites in 11 countries, presented in three sections: an overview of service delivery models for ART, a more in-depth account of the systems studied and a report of an international workshop on HRH and ART delivery.

Potential Implications of Hospital Autonomy on Human Resources Management: A Thai Case Study

Using Thailand as a case study, this paper aims to explore the potential implications of integrated health system intervention. Within the Thai context, it is argued in this paper that autonomy of a network of public providers, rather than autonomy of individual hospitals, should be encouraged if management of health manpower is to be optimized. [from abstract]

Human Resources for the Control of Road Traffic Injury

The definition of the ideal numbers and distribution of human resources required for control of road traffic injury (RTI) is not as advanced as for other health problems. We can nonetheless identify functions that need to be addressed across the spectrum of injury control. [from abstract]

Vertical-Horizontal Synergy of the Health Workforce

An editorial by Gijs Elzinga in an issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization dedicated to the theme of Human Resources for Health. Elzinga discusses the importance of effective interplay between the goals of vertical programs and the horizontal health care system within which vertical programs are implemented.