Journal Articles

Capacity management systems create insight into required resources like staff and equipment. For inpatient hospital care, capacity management requires information on beds and nursing staff capacity, on a daily as well as annual basis. This paper presents a comprehensive capacity model that gives insight into required nursing staff capacity and opportunities to improve capacity utilization on a ward level. [from abstract]

The migration of medical professionals as a result of the expansion of the European Union is cause for concern. But there is a significant lack of information available about this phenomenon. This study did a search of secondary databases about the presence of european doctors working abroad and a survey of professional organisations and regulators in countries of the European Union. [from abstract]

The India Local Initiatives Program adapted a model used in Indonesia and Bangladesh to implement the government’s reproductive and child health strategy. From 1999 to 2003, three Indian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provided services for 784,000 people in four northern states. This model proved to be a suitable platform upon which to build health-care service delivery and create behavioral change, and the NGOs quickly found ways to sustain and expand services. [from abstract]

Although adequate knowledge about HIV infection and effective antitransmission measures, such as taking universal precautions in the handling of blood and other body fluids, are important factors in minimizing the risk of HIV transmission in the healthcare setting, little has been reported on the knowledge of nurses with regard to HIV infection and their attitude toward patients with AIDS in Iran. The aim of the present study was to assess these matters. [author’s description]

This study examines the opinions of health professionals about the capacity and performance of the ‘tecnico de cirurgia’, a surgically trained assistant medical officer in the Mozambican health system. Particular attention is paid to the views of medical doctors and maternal and child health nurses. [from abstract]

In Senegal, traditional supervision often focuses more on collection of service statistics than on evaluation of service quality. This approach yields limited information on quality of care and does little to improve providers’ competence. In response to this challenge, Management Sciences for Health (MSH) has implemented a program of formative supervision. This multifaceted, problem-solving approach collects data on quality of care, improves technical competence, and engages the community in improving reproductive health care. [abstract]

This article reports a project that investigated the way government policies, health and community services, population characteristics and local peculiarities combined for residents in two small rural towns in New South Wales. Interviews and focus groups with policy makers, health and community service workers and community members identified the felt, expressed, normative and comparative needs of residents in the case-study towns. [from abstract]

This is an exploratory descriptive study that examined migration of locally trained doctors from Ghana using graduates of the country’s first medical school as a proxy. The objectives of the study were to describe trends in the loss of medical personnel to emigration and the influence this has on human resources planning, including forecasting of staff supply and requirements. It was also to provide some information towards the development of strategies to counteract such losses. [from abstract]

In this paper we present a comprehensive analysis of the literature and argue that, from a human rights perspective, there are competing rights in the international migration of health professionals: the right to leave one’s country to seek a better life; the right to health of populations in the source and destination countries; labour rights; the right to education; and the right to nondiscrimination and equality. Creative policy approaches are required to balance these rights and to ensure that the individual rights of health professionals do not compromise the societal right to health.

Health care providers play a crucial role in determining access to reproductive health services and their influence is likely to be heightened in delivering services to HIV-infected women. We examined the attitudes of health care policy makers and providers towards reproductive decision- making among HIV-infected individuals. [from abstract]

This article reflects on the state of the art in providing a safe working environment for HCWs and to consider a future path towards equitable access to its basic elements. [author’s description]

Delivery by a skilled birth attendant (SBA) serves as an indicator of progress towards reducing maternal mortality worldwide – the fifth Millennium Development Goal. Though WHO tracks the proportion of women delivered by SBAs, we know little about their competence to manage common life-threatening obstetric complications. We assessed SBA competence in five high maternal mortality settings as a basis for initiating quality improvement. [from abstract]

Home-based management of malaria (HMM) is promoted as a major strategy to improve prompt delivery of effective malaria treatment in Africa. The published literature was searched for studies that evaluated the health impact of community- and home-based treatment for malaria in Africa. [from abstract]

This paper reports the findings at baseline in a multi-phase project that aimed at reducing maternal mortality in a local government area of South-West Nigeria. The objectives were to determine the availability of essential obstetric care services and to assess the quality of existing services. The first phase of this interventional study, which is the focus of this paper, consisted of a baseline health facility and needs assessment survey using instruments adapted from the United Nations guidelines. [from abstract]

A worldwide shortage of health care workers, coupled with a disproportionate concentration of health workers in developed nations and urban areas, stands in the way of achieving such key public health priorities as reducing child and maternal mortality, increasing vaccine coverage, and battling epidemics such as HIV/AIDS. [author’s description]

In hospitals, the costs of employee turnover are substantial and intentions to leave among staff may manifest as lowered performance. We examined whether team climate, as indicated by clear and shared goals, participation, task orientation and support for innovation, predicts intention to leave the job and actual turnover among hospital employees. [from abstract]

In responding to the goal of rapidly increasing access to antiretroviral treatment (ART), the government of Botswana undertook a major review of its health systems options to increase access to human resources, one of the major bottlenecks preventing people from receiving treatment. In mid-2004, a team of government and World Health Organization (WHO) staff reviewed the situation and identified a number of public sector scale up options. The team also reviewed the capacity of private practitioners to participate in the provision of ART. Subsequently, the government created a mechanism to include private practitioners in rolling out ART.

The aim of this study was to establish whether a web-based package on the diagnosis of respiratory disease would be as effective and as acceptable to final year medical students as tutor-led methods of teaching the same material. [from abstract]

As a group, indigenous Australians are much less healthy and more likely to die at younger ages than their non-indigenous counterparts. Training more indigenous people as health workers could help to reduce these startling inequalities, say experts. [author’s description]

The study was carried out to evaluate short term effects of one to one educational intervention approach, conducted with 40 drug sellers in order to improve the private sector’s practices, compliance and performance in using the national treatment guidelines for malaria and other common childhood (diarrhoea, acute respiratory tract infection-ARI) illnesses in Kibaha district-Tanzania. [from abstract]

This study assessed whether the strategy of “a midwife in every village” in Indonesia achieved its aim of increasing professional delivery care for the poorest women. [from abstract]

This retrospective study assessed the effects of pre- and post-training programme for healthcare professionals about breastfeeding. [from abstract]

Limited human resources to treat HIV/AIDS (HRHA) are one of the main constraints to achieving universal ART coverage. We model the gap between needed and available HRHA to quantify the challenge of achieving and sustaining universal ART coverage by 2017. [from abstract]

We examined how individual and institutional factors in health care settings affected discrimination toward persons with HIV/AIDS. A representative sample of 1101 Chinese service providers was recruited in 2005, including doctors, nurses, and laboratory technicians. [from abstract]

In parts of rural Africa, where conflict and neglect have destroyed any remnants of a functioning health system, there is one long-running public-health programme that is not only surviving but thriving—by capitalising on communities’ desires to help themselves. [author’s description]

This article evaluates a malaria in-service training for community health nurses working at a village level. The program included a computer-based training package, the first of its kind for health professionals in Gambia. [adapted from abstract]

Nurses provide the bulk of primary care services in South Africa. Post-apartheid health legislation envisions the provision of comprehensive primary services at all public clinics, which implies the need for a cadre of primary care nurses able to render such services. The objective of this study was to identify core competencies of clinic nurses and develop an evaluation tool for primary care nursing in South Africa. [from abstract]

The MCH clinic workers in Somalia receive formal and in-service training to perform their professional duties. Their competence in the field was never examined. This study assessed their competencies in detecting malnourished children 5 years and below in Beledweyne. [from abstract]

Family Medicine training and assessment is becoming more formalized and developed in South Africa. Assessment of competency in relation to clinical skills can involve observation in the clinical setting, but is more usually assessed in an examination. Summative assessment of family physician’s clinical skills now usually includes an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Standardisation of the OSCE is required to define the pass mark above which a candidate performs at the level expected of a family physician. [from abstract]

This paper discusses global, regional and national perspectives of traditional medicine development and efforts that have been directed towards bridging the gap between traditional health practitioners and scientists/biomedical heath practitioners in contemporary health research in Tanzania. [from abstract]