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Systematic Review: Effects, Design Choices, and Context of Pay-for-Performance in Health Care

Pay-for-performance (P4P) is one of the primary tools used to support healthcare delivery reform. This paper summarizes evidence, obtained from studies published between January 1990 and July 2009, concerning P4P effects, as well as evidence on the impact of design choices, and contextual mediators on these effects. [from abstract]

Family Planning and HIV Services Toolkit

This toolkit is your one-stop source for evidence-based knowledge and promising practices to support the successful integration of family planning (FP) and HIV services. It summarizes the latest evidence and provides links to guidelines and tools to help you plan, manage, deliver, evaluate, and support integrated services. [adapted from publisher]

Human Resources in Humanitarian Health Working Group Report

Task shifting is one avenue for delivering needed health care in resource poor settings, and on-the-ground reports indicate that task shifting may be applicable in humanitarian responses to natural disasters and conflicts. This report evaluates the potential strengths and weaknesses of task shifting in humanitarian relief efforts, and proposes a range of strategies to constructively integrate task shifting into humanitarian response. [adapted from abstract]

Profiling Alumni of a Brazilian Public Dental School

Follow-up studies of former students are an efficient way to organize the entire process of professional training and curriculum evaluation. The aim of this study was to identify professional profile subgroups based on job-related variables in a sample of former students of a Brazilian public dental school. [from abstract]

Non-Financial Incentives for Voluntary Community Health Workers: a Qualitative Study

Through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, this study explores the potential efficacy of non-financial incentives (NFI) proposed by the L10k project, an Ethiopian health extension project. The results of the study outline factors motivating voluntary community health workers, indicate other NFI mechanisms for consideration, and suggest programmatic recommendations. [adapated from publisher]

Tuberculosis Management by Private Practitioners in Mumbai, India: Has Anything Changed in Two Decades?

The objective of this research was to study prescribing practices of private practitioners in the treatment of tuberculosis, two decades after a similar study conducted in the same geographical area revealed dismal results. [from abstract]

Sleep and Recovery in Physicians on Night Call: a Longitudinal Field Study

The aim of the present study was to examine whether a 16-hour night-call schedule allowed for sufficient recovery in anaesthesiologists compared with other physician specialists handling less life-threatening conditions, when on call. [from abstract]

Community-Based Intervention Packages for Preventing Maternal Morbidity and Mortality and Improving Neonatal Outcomes

The objective of this literature review is to assess the effectiveness of community-based intervention packages of improved maternal care during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum, as well as care of the newborn, in preventing maternal morbidity and mortality and improving neonatal outcomes. [adapted from summary]

Exploring the Impact of Mentoring Functions on Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment of New Staff Nurses

This research aimed at examining the effects of mentoring functions on the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of new nurses in Taiwan’s hospitals.

Report of the First Meeting of the Health Workforce Information Reference Group

A technical meeting on strengthening health workforce information systems was held on 10–12 March 2010 in Montreux, Switzerland. The aim of this meeting was to initiate discussion on how to promote a coordinated, harmonized and standardized approach to strengthening country health workforce information and monitoring systems to support policy, planning and research. [from summary]

Mapping Human Resources for Health Profiles from 15 Pacific Island Countries

This report summarizes a a rapid mapping of HRH resources in Pacific Island countries to generate baseline data on the current HRH situation in the region, information on in-country and external education institutions involved in HRH development, and data on external partners providing HRH-related assistance. [adapted from summary]

Characterizing Hospital Workers' Willingness to Report to Duty in an Influenza Pandemic through Threat and Efficacy Based Assessment

Hospital-based providers’ willingness to report to work during an influenza pandemic is a critical yet under-studied phenomenon. Witte’s Extended Parallel Process Model has been shown to be useful for understanding adaptive behavior of public health workers to an unknown risk, and thus offers a framework for examining scenario-specific willingness to respond among hospital staff. [from abstract]

Public-Private Mix for DOTS Implementation: What Makes It Work?

The objective of this article is to compare the processes and outcomes of four pulic-private mix project on DOTS implementation for tuberculosis control in New Delhi, India; Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam; Nairobi, Keny; and Pune, India. [from abstract]

Entry into this World: Who Should Assist? Birth Attendants and Newborn Health

The period of birth is critical in the life of the mother and the baby. Ideally, it needs to be assisted in a competent manner by a skilled birth attendant (SBA) supported by an enabling environment. This goal has yet to be achieved in all countries. It is essential to upgrade the skills of existing SBAs in managing both the mother and baby, and to supply the necessary resources. Another key strategy is to implement suitable community-based interventions to achieve the required behaviors in family members, health workers, and volunteers to improve newborn health. [abstract]

Health Workforce Responses to Global Health Initiatives Funding: a Comparison of Malawi and Zambia

Shortages of health workers are obstacles to utilising global health initiative (GHI) funds effectively in Africa. This paper reports and analyses two countries’ health workforce responses during a period of large increases in GHI funds. [from abstract]

Challenge and Change: Integrating the Challenge of Gender Norms and Sexuality in a Maternal Health Program

This report documents some of the processes undertaken to integrate gender and sexuality factors into a maternal health project in Uttar Pradesh, India from 2007-2009. [from foreword]

Meeting Challenges, Seeding Change: Integrating Gender and Sexuality into Maternal and Newborn Health Programming through the Inner Spaces, Outer Faces Initiative (ISOFI)

This document reviews the ISOFI program. The iterative steps of this system focus on building staff and organisational capacity to critically analyse the social construction of gender and explore how gender influences personal values and beliefs and programmatic designs and choices. In turn, through the analysis-reflection-action cycle of the ISOFI Innovation System, staff can help community health providers and other stakeholders to analyse gender issues, reflect on local barriers and opportunities, and make implementation plans to catalyze change. [from author]

Assessment of the Health Management Information Systems in Select Areas of Aceh Province

This assessment evaluates a health service mangement systems project undertaken in the Aceh province after the 2004 earthquakea and tsunami. The project implemented information systems for hospitals and primary care, and this evaluation details the lessons learned and challenges from health workers as well as the short term impact the systems have had on health service delivery processes.

Nurse Led, Primary Care Based Antiretroviral Treatment Versus Hospital Care: a Controlled Prospective Study in Swaziland

Antiretroviral treatment services delivered in hospital settings in Africa increasingly lack capacity to meet demand and are difficult to access by patients. This article evaluates the effectiveness of nurse-led primary care based antiretroviral treatment by comparison with usual hospital care in a typical rural sub Saharan African setting. [from abstract]

Field Epidemiology Training Programmes in Africa: Where Are the Graduates?

There is currently limited published evidence of health-related training programmes in Africa that have produced graduates, who remain and work in their countries after graduation. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of graduates of field epidemiology training programmes in Africa stay on to work in their home countries, many as valuable resources to overstretched health systems. [from abstract]

Systematic Review of Economic Analyses of Telehealth Services Using Real Time Video Communication

Telehealth is the delivery of health care at a distance, using information and communication technology. The major rationales for its introduction have been to decrease costs, improve efficiency and increase access in health care delivery. This systematic review assesses the economic value of one type of telehealth delivery - synchronous or real time video communication – rather than examining a heterogeneous range of delivery modes as has been the case with previous reviews in this area. [from abstract]

Packages of Interventions for Family Planning, Safe Abortion Care, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

This document describes the key effective interventions organized in packages across the continuum of care through pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, newborn care and care of the child. The packages are defined for community and/or facility levels in developing countries and provide guidance on the essential components needed to assure adequacy and quality of care. [from publisher]

Skilled Birth Attendants

This factsheet discusses the roles, resposibilities and impact on maternal mortality of skilled birth attendants.

Models and Tools for Health Workforce Planning and Projections

The objective of this paper is to take stock of the available methods and tools for health workforce planning and projections, and to describe the processes and resources needed to undertake such an exercise. [from introduction]

Costing the Scaling-Up of Human Resources for Health: Lessons from Mozambique and Guinea Bissau

This paper reports on two separate experiences of human resources development plans costing in Mozambique and Guinea Bissau to provide insight into the practice of costing exercises in information-poor settings and contribute to the existing debate on HRH costing methodologies. [adapted from abstract]

Retraining Due to Illness and Its Implications in Nursing Mangement

The objective of this qualitative study was to understand how nursing professionals coped with job retraining in a public hospital after an illness. [adapted from abstract]

Healthcare Professionals' Intentions to Use Clinical Guidelines: a Survey Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour

This study evaluated which factors affect health professionals’ intentions to use clinical guidelines generally in their decision-making on patient care. [adapted from abstract]

Meeting Human Resources for Health Staffing Goals by 2018: a Quatitatvie Analysis of Policy Options in Zambia

The MOH has developed a human resources for health strategic plan to address the health workforce crisis through improved training, hiring, and retention. This study used a model to forecast the size of the public sector health workforce in Zambia over the next ten years to identify a combination of interventions that would expand the workforce to meet staffing targets. [adapted from abstract]

Impact Evaluation of a Young Medical Volunteers Project for Vietnam Rural Mountain

This study evaluates the health impacts of a volunteer intervention addressing health worker shortage in remote mountainous communities of Vietnam. [from abstract]

Network-Based Social Capital and Capacity-Building Programs: an Example from Ethiopia

This study assessed the social networks in a Master of Hospital and Healthcare Administration program. The authors’ conclusions suggest that intentional social network development may be an important opportunity for capacity-building programs as healthcare systems improve their ability to manage resources and tackle emerging problems. [adapted from introduction]