Human Resources Management

This field guide is intended to provide some help with the task of improving the delivery of health services using standards of care as the basis for improvement. This guide is designed to answer questions such as: What types of standards are really useful to local providers and mangers? How can they be implemented in a practical way? How can the improvement process be supported?

This issue explores the Management Sciences for Health’s Virtual Leadership Development Program, which was designed to strengthen the leadership capacity of health teams to produce organizational results. [adapted from author]

Improving health workers’ performance is vital for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. In the literature on human resource management interventions to improve health workers’ performance in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC), hardly any attention has been paid to the question how HRM interventions might bring about outcomes and in which contexts. Our aim was to explore if realist review of published primary research provides better insight into the functioning of interventions in LMIC. [abstract]

This working paper aims to outline the evolving picture of how London’s health care labour market is performing within the context of these changes by comparing previous findings with more recent data. It also looks at the challenges ahead and some possible ways forward. [adapted from introduction]

There is broad policy consensus that a shortage of doctors and nurses is a key constraint to increasing utilization of essential health services important for achieving the health Millennium Development Goals. However, there is limited research on the quantitative links between health workers and service coverage rates. This article examines the relationship between doctor and nurse concentrations and utilization rates of five essential health services in developing countries. [adapted from abstract]

This study aims to undertake a national assessment of existing district management structures, competencies and current training programmes in order to inform a national strategy and plan to strengthen district management capacity to ensure effective delivery of primary health care in South Africa. [from introduction]

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]

The aims of this publication are to encourage midwives and student midwives to make the most of supervision by working in partnership with their supervisor; provide clear information about the supervisory process and the interface between supervision and midwifery practice; and inform midwives and student midwives about the changing role of the supervisor of midwives. [from introduction]

The most common problems related to Health Workers Salaries and Benefits (HWSB) in Bolivia, Peru and Chile are shortage of health workers, disparity of skills, poor distribution of health workers, inadequate working environments and low knowledge about the characteristic of HWSB. This report collects data about these countries, showing that the wages of doctors during the last fifteen years have generally had to increase more than the wages of other workers. [adapted from executive summary]

Nurses and managers interviewed in Cape Town primary care facilities share their insights, experiences and how they cope with the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. [from introduction]

This document details the specific hiring criteria for allied health staff as established by the Health Services division of the Ghana Ministry of Health. Primary areas of interest to HRH facilitators include positions in the fields of optometry, dentistry, oral health and laboratory staff.

This document details the specific hiring criteria for allied health staff as established by the Health Services division of the Ghana Ministry of Health. Primary areas of interest to HRH facilitators include positions in the fields of physiotherapy, occupational therapy and disease control.

This document details the specific hiring criteria for administrative and support staff as established by the Health Services division of the Ghana Ministry of Health.

This document details the specific hiring criteria for directors as established by the Health Services division of the Ghana Ministry of Health.

This document details the specific hiring criteria for clinical, nursing & midwifery and pharmacy staff as established by the Health Services division of the Ghana Ministry of Health.

This document details the specific hiring criteria for blood donor organizers as established by the Health Services division of the Ghana Ministry of Health.

This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the remuneration of doctors in 14 OECD countries for which reasonably comparable data were available in OECD Health Data 2007 (Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States).

The nursing workforce in many countries today is more age diverse than ever before in history. Each generation has a distinct set of characteristics, values, beliefs and preferences. Understanding these differences and blending them in the workplace challenges even the most experienced and capable leader. This paper identifies the characteristics of each generation and explores several implications for the effective management of nursing services. [from foreword]

In recent years, some efforts have been made at developing systems for assessing performance and generating information to assist in the distribution of resources in the health sector. However, most of these measurements have focused on the implementation of services and the intermediate steps that determine how inputs are transformed into outputs. This document uses available information to estimate the cost of providing service and workload analysis in order to provide a picture of efficiency in the delivery of services. [from introduction]

Increased immunization coverage is an important step towards fulfilling the Millennium Development Goal of reducing childhood mortality. Recent cross-sectional and cross-national research has indicated that physician, nurse and midwife densities may positively influence immunization coverage. However, little is known about relationships between densities of HRH and vaccination coverage within developing countries and over time. This study examines HRH densities and coverage of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) in Turkey from 2000 to 2006. [from abstract]

Strong leadership and management skills are crucial to finding solutions to the human resource crisis in health. Health professionals and human resource (HR) managers worldwide who are in charge of addressing HR challenges in health systems often lack formal education in leadership and management. The Virtual Leadership Development Program is a web-based leadership development program that combines face-to-face and distance learning methodologies to strengthen the capacity of teams to identify and address health challenges and produce results. [adapted from abstract]

Interviews were conducted with staff of 4 hospitals thought to be functioning relatively well. The purpose of this study was to understand some of the factors contributing to the relative success of 4 South African distric hospitals, in order to share lessons learned with other institutions. A number of key factors were identified through this process, many of which relate to the performance, management and interactions of the health workers, which appear to be important in effective functioning of district hospitals. [adapted from summary]

This qualitative study was undertaken to explore and describe the experiences of professional nurses in their relationships with nurse managers. [from abstract]

This curriculum focuses on the fundamentals of quality health care services in presenting an approach to supervision that emphasizes mentoring, joint problem solving, and two-way communication. It is meant to be used by trainers who introduce the facilitative approach to supervision to supervisors from different levels of the health system: on-site and off-site supervisors, including medical and nonmedical supervisors. [from publisher]

This technical brief describes in some detail the human resources managment (HRM) problems that contribute to the health worker crisis, as these have often been underplayed, or not addressed at all. The brief also identifies specific strategic actions that ought to be taken to address these HRM challenges, and concludes with some examples of broad futuristic thinking and innovations to stimulate donor and programmatic funding opportunities for strengthening HRH. [from author]

This paper argues that stronger and values-based public sector management and leadership is essential in building health systems that better address health inequities. It identifies the particular competencies of public sector managers and reviews evidence on how these competencies can be developed. Renewing the values base of public health system managers and professionals is an important requirement. [from summary]

In South Africa, first-contact primary care is delivered by nurses in small clinics and larger community health centres (CHC). CHCs also employ doctors, who often work in isolation from the nurses, with poor differentiation of roles and little effective teamwork or communication. Worcester CHC, a typical public sector CHC in rural South Africa, decided to explore how to create more successful practice teams of doctors and nurses.

This mid-term evaluation report focuses on Capacity Project support to the Government of Kenya’s Emergency Hiring Plan. It assesses the main achievements, challenges and impact on service delivery and health systems improvement, from the plan’s inception through the November 2007 mid-point. The report outlines all aspects of the approach used, providing clear recommendations on how the Ministry of Health may strengthen its existing human resource systems on the basis of lessons learned, and provides additional insights to the process, which may be useful for informing similar country contexts.

This paper reports on the design and implementation of a completely new pay system in the National Health Service (NHS) in England.Pay and pay systems are a critical element in any health sector human resource strategy. Changing a pay system can be one strategy to achieve or sustain organizational change. [from abstract]

Two crises dominate the health sectors of sub-Saharan African countries: those of human resources and of HIV. There is considerable variation in the extent to which these two phenomena affect sub-Saharan countries, with a few facing extreme levels of both. This paper reviews the continent-wide situation with respect to this double burden before considering the case of Malawi in more detail. [from abstract]