Human Resources Management

This study used covert observers to determine health worker adherence to hand hygiene compliance for hospital infection control.

This review looked for evidence for the most effective approach to deliver malaria treatment in developing countries, by public sector, formal and informal private sector, and community health workers. The authors analysed 31 studies to assess providers based on six criteria: knowledge and practice of provider, diagnosis, referral practices, price of medicine, availability of ACT, and treatment coverage and impact on morbidity and mortality. [from abstract]

This study investigated the knowledge and performance of health extension workers (HEWs) on antenatal and delivery care. The study also explored the barriers and facilitators for HEWs in the provision of maternal health care. [from abstract]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance of health workers after decentralisation of the health services in Uganda in order to identify and suggest possible areas for improvement. [from abstract]

The simulated client (SC) method for evaluating health worker performance utilizes surveyors who pose as patients to make surreptitious observations during consultations. During a trial that evaluated a quality improvement intervention in Benin, the authors conducted an SC survey with adult caretakers as surveyors and real children to evaluate the feasibility of this approach for evaluating health worker performance for pediatric illnesses. [adapted from abstract]

This report provides insight into health workforce performance in Nepal, looking at the four dimensions of health workforce performance: availability, competency, responsiveness and productivity. It informs policy-makers and managers on interventions to improve health workforce performance in Nepal. [from summary]

This article addresses health workers’ experiences with the open performance review and appraisal system (OPRAS) in Tanzania, expectations towards pay for performance, and how lessons learned from OPRAS can assist in the implementation of pay for performance. The broader aim is to generate knowledge on health workers’ motivation in low-income contexts. [adapted from abstract]

This study investigated the reasons for the poor performance of the district health executives reported by provincial health managers in the Midlands province of Zimbabwe. [adapted from abstract]

This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among private sector doctors who manage HIV and AIDS patients in KwaZulu-Natal to collect data on private sector doctors’ HIV testing practices.

The authors wished to establish the use of existing diabetes management guidelines by general practitioners in Tshwane, South Africa. [adapted from abstract]

This study aimed at assessing the current situation of the health system of rural health care and evaluating the clinical competency of village doctors in management of childhood illnesses prior to implementing IMCI program in remote border rural areas. [from abstract]

This document is an introduction to the optimizing performance and quality process for analyzing the performance of health workers, organizations, and systems, and setting up interventions to improve performance and quality or build on strengths and successes. [adapted from author]

This study aimed to examine attitudes of different health workers’ groups toward immigrant patients and to identify the associated factors. [from abstract]

Building on medical education and social psychology literature, the authors identified several factors that may influence change in response to multi-source feedback, which offers doctors feedback on their performance from peers (medical colleagues), coworkers and patients. [adapted from abstract]

This study focused on female Japanese physicians and addressed factors that were associated with their empathic engagement in patient care. [from abstract]

The paper develops a framework for designing and implementing healthcare delivery innovations aimed at making markets work better for poor people. Focusing on the social contract between providers and users, it reviews several arrangements that have emerged, with a particular focus on the providers largely used by the poor. [from publisher]

This survey tests the use of employee engagement concepts in United States Agency for International Development-assisted countries to measure and improve health worker performance, productivity, and retention. [adapted from author]

This baseline assessment of HIV/AIDS service providers gathered information on productivity and engagement to develop a set of improved human resource practices that will be integrated into ongoing HIV service delivery. [adapted from summary]

There is a global need to assess physicians’ professional performance in actual clinical practice. This study focuses on the reliability and validity, the influences of some sociodemographic biasing factors, associations between self and other evaluations, and the number of evaluations needed for reliable assessment of a physician based on the three instruments used for the multisource assessment of physicians’ professional performance in the Netherlands. [from abstract]

This report summarizes the findings of a qualitative study on health workers’ performance and career in Rwanda to identify bottlenecks, strengths and shortcomings for human resources in the health sector, as perceived by both health workers and users of health services. [adapted from summary]

The objective of this study was to compare compliance with national paediatric HIV treatment guidelines between nurse prescribers and doctors at a paediatric referral centre in Gaborone, Botswana. [from author]

The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the quality of nursing service and care in three health districts in the KwaZulu Natal Province and to identify deficiencies which could be addressed by education and training for nurses. [adapted from abstract]

This study explored primary health care staff’s perception, challenges and needs pertaining to the identification of children with tuberculosis in Muheza district in Tanzania. [from abstract]

This paper uses ethnographic methods to document health workers’ antenatal care practices with reference to the national Focused Antenatal Care guidelines and identifies factors influencing health workers’ performance. Potential implications for improving antenatal care provision in Tanzania are discussed. [from abstract]

A study from rural Tanzania shows that health workers usually don’t do the investigations that are required to identify some of the deadly illnesses that could be diagnosed and treat. [adapted from author]

This brief reports the main results from a study aiming to compare worker effort levels in church-based and government health clinics in Tanzania. [from author]

This article aimed to quantify how nurses distribute their time across tasks, with patients, in individual tasks, and engagement with other health care providers; and how work patterns changed over a two year period.

Comparisons of patient experiences between providers are increasingly used as an index of provider performance. This study describes the ability of patient experience surveys to discriminate between healthcare providers for various patient groups and quality aspects, and reports the sample sizes required for reliable comparisons of provider scores. [adapted from abstract]

This guide is intended for health-care workers, program managers and policy-makers who are responsible for the quality of maternal health care within a health-care facility or of the entire health system. It presents a standard approach for monitoring the implementation of critical interventions in maternal health care and proposes a systematic process for assessing the quality of care. In its entirety, the included methods and related processes constitute the WHO maternal near-miss approach. [from introduction]

This report uses a human rights framework to examine accountability for maternal health care. It sets out several specific steps that South African and Eastern Cape governments should take to better integrate accountability into maternal health care programs and ensure their implementation through the health system. [from author]