Planning

Better Data, Better Decisions: a Profile of the Nursing Workforce

This data creates a profile of the nursing workforce, which is useful for projecting trends and estimating future requirements. At the corporate level, longitudinal examination over a series of years would demonstrate the relationship between the characteristics of the nursing workforce and the overall requirements for patient care. At the unit level, the data is helpful to examine human resource needs and fluctuations in the workforce characteristics.

Better Data: Better Performance: Community Health Nursing in Ontario

Understanding the supply and utilization of nurses is critical to maintaining an effective community health system. There has to be sufficient staff and a work environment that builds on the existing strengths of community health nursing to meet emerging needs. This report provides a demographic profile of community health nurses (CHNs) in Ontario and identifies enablers that support optimal practice of their competencies. [from executive summary]

Medicines without Doctors: Why the Global Fund Must Fund Salaries of Health Workers to Expand AIDS Treatment

Recent comments from the Global Fund suggest an intention to focus more on the three diseases, and to leave the strengthening of health systems and support for the health workforce to others. This could create a “Medicines without Doctors” situation in which the medicines to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria are available, but not the doctors or the nurses to prescribe those medicines adequately. [author’s description]

Ophthalmology Human Resource Projections: Are We Heading for a Crisis in the Next 15 Years?

This manpower projection was undertaken by using the Canadian Medical Association Physician Resource Evaluation Template. This spreadsheet-based stock and flow model incorporates key parameters in estimating physician supply over the next 2 decades and enables planners to create various scenarios to test the effects on future supply. [author’s description]

Study of Health Human Resources in Nova Scotia 2003

This report provides a comprehensive picture of HRH in Nova Scotia, a snapshot of the number of people working in each health occupation and health care setting; education and training characteristics; age, gender and other demographics, and wokplace injury and illness informatio.

Black and Minority Ethnic and Internationally Recruited Nurses: Results from RCN Employment/Working Well Surveys 2005 and 2002

In order to help improve Royal College of Nursing understanding of the employment experiences of internationally recruited nurses and UK trained black and minority ethnic (BME) nurses, the RCN commissioned a secondary analysis to draw together commentary and analysis from previous surveys.

At Breaking Point: a Survey of the Wellbeing and Working Lives of Nurses in 2005

The RCN commissioned a survey of 6,000 members in 2000 to explore nurses’ wellbeing and working lives. The results subsequently helped shape RCN policy and materials for members on topics such as bullying and harassment, violence, needlestick injury and employee-friendly working practices. Five years later, the RCN has commissioned a second survey looking at a similar range of issues. This report documents the findings of that survey, and describes differences between the 2000 and 2005 survey findings. [introduction]

Global Health Facts

This tool gives data about number of physicians, nurses, community health workers, midwives, births attended by skilled health personnel and hospital beds by country in user-friendly maps and tables. Click on “Health Workforce & Capacity” to access the data sets.

Cost Analysis Tool: Simplifying Cost Analysis for Managers and Staff of Health Care Services

Health care organizations often do not know what their costs are and have no simple way of assessing costs on a regular basis… This cost analysis tool involves site administrators and service providers themselves in measuring recurrent direct costs of providing services. [author’s description]

Paying for People: Financing the Skilled Workers Needed to Deliver Health and Education Services for All

This is the first in a series of three papers that examines the financing of services in developing countries. This paper focuses on external assistance in the form of aid and debt cancellation to finance the recruitement, training and salaries of health and education workers. It also discusses the factors that contribute to the critical shortage of these workers and explores some approaches to scaling-up the recruitment of health workers and teachers. [adapted from author]

State of Human Resources for Health in Zambia: Findings from the Public Expenditure Tracking and Quality of Service Delivery Survey, 2005/06

This paper reports the findings of the PET/QSDS pertaining to human resources for health in Zambia. The Public Expenditure Tracking and Quality of Service Delivery survey (PET/QSDS) was undertaken in mid-2006 to provide quantitative assessment of the state of health service delivery in the country. One component of the survey focused on the management of health personnel, including staff availability, vacancy, absenteeism, and tardiness; staff turnover; staff workload, use of time, and morale; and staff salary and benefits. [from introduction]

World Health Statistics 2007

World health statistics 2007 presents the most recent health statistics for WHO’s 193 Member States. This third edition includes a section with 10 highlights of global health statistics for the past year as well as an expanded set of 50 health statistics. [publisher’s description] The section on Health Workforce Statistics gives a breakdown of the total number and density by population for the 193 member countries.

Software Tool for Policy Diagnosis and Dialogue (SoftPoDD)

This tool seeks to assist HRH workers and policy makers in a country think through, diagnose, and stimulate dialogue about their HRH challenges by responding to questions and reflecting on the policy implications of their answers.

Global Pharmacy Workforce and Migration Report: a Call for Action

This report presents global data on the distribution of pharmacists, continuing professional development systems, and migration of pharmacists. [author’s description]

Human Resources for Health Strategic Plan (Draft): 2006 - 2010

In order to resolve the crisis and address the key issues the Ministry of Health has developed a Human Resources for Health Strategic Plan, in consultation with key stakeholders. The strategies and activities outlined in the Plan attempt to address the concerns of all the stakeholders consulted and to provide a framework to guide and direct interventions, investments and decision making in the planning, management and development of human resources for health. [from foreword]

Mapping Capacity in the Health Sector: a Conceptual Framework

This paper aims to review current knowledge and experiences from ongoing efforts to monitor and evaluate capacity building interventions in the health sector in developing countries.

Human Resources for Health Planning and Management in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: Facts, Gaps and Forward Thinking for Research and Policy

The objectives of this paper are to: lay out the facts on what we know about the HRH for EMR countries; generate and interpret evidence on the relationship between HRH and health status indicators for LMICs and middle and high income countries (MHICs) in the context of EMR; identify and analyze the information gaps and provide forward thinking by identifying priorities for research and policy. [abstract]

Human Resources for Health Retention Strategies: CHAZ Response to the Human Resource Crisis in Zambia

This presentation was given as part of the Christian Health Association’s Conference: CHAs at a Crossroad Towards Achieving Health Millennium Development Goals. It discusses church health institutions and the HR crisis, including staffing levels and attrition; the national response, and details the many efforts of the CHAZ response such as the CHAZ Health Workers’ Retention Scheme.

Partnership Building: Practical Tools to Help You Create, Strengthen, Assess and Manage Your Partnership or Alliance More Productively

The complex and wide ranging challenges related to human resources for health in developing countries necessitate that stakeholders work together through inclusive alliances and networks. This kit aims to offer those wanting to create a partnership, as well as those already working in one, some easily accessible tools to support that process. [from introduction]

Africa's Health in 2010: Capacity Strengthening of African Institutions and Networks: a Strategy

The purpose of this document is to provide Africa 2010’s strategy for strengthening regional and local capacity for adopting effective policies and innovations to improve the health status of Africans. [from introduction]

Rwanda Human Resources Assessment for HIV/AIDS Services Scale-Up: Summary Report

This report examines the workforce issues surrounding HIV/AIDS service delivery. At the request of the Government of Rwanda, data were collected on current health sector staffing and from 20 public and private facilities of various sizes and characteristics on the time required to provide HIV/AIDS services and the quality of those services. The report presents data relative to the numbers of clients needing different types of HIV/AIDS services, providers’ degree of compliance with service delivery standards, and the time it takes to provide services.

Health Human Resources Planning and the Production of Health: Development of an Extended Analytical Framework for Needs-Based Health Human Resources Planning

In this paper an analytical framework is developed based on the production of health care services and the multiple determinants of health human resource requirements. Attention is focused on estimating the flow of services required to meet the needs of the population that is then translated into the required stock of providers to deliver this flow of services. [from abstract]

Human Resources Development Review 2003: Education, Employment and Skills in South Africa: Chapter 23 - Medical Practioners and Nurses

This chapter aims to determine the current demand for medical practitioners and nurses in South Africa by looking at the number of positions that are filled and the number that are currently vacant. It attempts to determine the number of medical practitioners and nursing positions that will be required until 2011, establishes the expected output from higher education over the next ten years, and determines the gap between supply and demand of health professionals. [adapted from introduction]

HRH Action Framework

The HRH Action Framework presented here is designed to assist governments and health managers to develop and implement strategies to achieve an effective and sustainable health workforce. By using a comprehensive approach, the Framework will help you address staff shortages, uneven distribution of staff, gaps in skills and competencies, low retention and poor motivation, among other challenges. [publisher’s description] This website guides users through the HRH development process using indicators, resources, tools and guidelines.

Capacity Building in an AIDS-Affected Health Care Institution: Mulanje Mission Hospital, Malawi

This Praxis Note provides an overview of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the Malawi health care system and on the organisational capacity of Mulanje Mission Hospital. It describes the experiences and lessons learnt from a capacity building program designed to address capacity deficits and erosion caused by HIV/AIDS attrition. Less emphasis was placed on external training courses and increasing attention given to short-course inputs and distance learning. [from introduction]

Critical Challenges for Human Resources for Health: a Regional View

This text presents the context and background, the methodology and some of the main results of the regional consultation on the critical challenges for human resources in health in the Americas. This consultation hopefully documents how the countries in the Americas are facing the main challenges to the development of the health workforce. The main results and suggestions by the actors consulted with regard to the role of international cooperation in the countries of the Region are presented, so that the countries and international agencies can better formulate common strategies of development and strengthening of the work force in health.

Treat, Train Retain: the AIDS and Health Workforce Plan

This report on the Consultation on AIDS and Human Resources for Health, WHO, Geneva, 11-12 May, 2006 outlines the Treat, Train Retain plan to address AIDS and HRH. The plan comprises three sets of elements: a package of HIV treatment, prevention, care and support services for health workers in countries affected by HIV (Treat); measures to empower health workers to deliver universal access to HIV/AIDS services (Train); and strategies to retain health workers in the public health system, including financial and other incentives and strategies to improve pay and working conditions and manage the migration of health care workers (Retain).

Building the Future: an Integrated Strategy for Nursing Human Resources in Canada: Phase II Final Report

This report marks the culmination of the Nursing Sector Study. The five year study consisted of two phases, and examined the nursing workforce for all three regulated nursing professions in Canada. Phase I, which concluded in December 2004, examined the state of nursing human resources in Canada. The objective of Phase II was to develop a pan-Canadian nursing human resource (HR) strategy in consultation with government and non-government stakeholders that built on the findings and recommendations presented at the completion of Phase I. [from executive summary]

Success with Internationally Recruited Nurses: RCN Good Practice Guidance for Employers in Recruiting and Retaining

This guidance sets out some of the key issues faced by IRNs, and suggests good practice for managers in overcoming these problems to create a new workforce whose wellbeing and professional status is at the forefront of recruitement policies. [from introduction]

International Recruitment of Nurses: United Kingdom Case Study

This paper assesses the reasons for recent growth in recruitment of registered nurses from other countries to the United Kingdom (UK). It aims to examine trends in inward recruitment of nurses to the UK, assess the impact of free mobility of registered nurses in the European Union from a UK perspective, examine the impact of the introduction of ethical guidelines on international recruitment of nurses to the UK, and explore the reasons why registered nurses are internationally mobile. [from introduction]