Evaluations & Reviews

This study assessed the effectiveness of a neonatal resuscitation training workshop for final-year medical students in Malaysia in improving knowledge immediately post-training and at the end of the year. [adapted from abstract]

This report highlights trends across Canada, across regulated nursing professions and across a variety of demographic, education, mobility and employment characteristics to inform health human resource planning in Canada. [from summary]

The purpose of this review is to assess the effectiveness of community health worker programs, with particular emphasis on how they have or how they might assist countries in achieving the health-related MDGs.[from author]

This study assessed the impact of a behavioral telehealth ethical competencies training program on behavioral health providers’ development of behavioral telehealth competency. Video vignettes evaluating the 14 competencies, self-reported competence surveys and follow-up surveys of progress on telehealth goals were utilized to assess effects of the training. [adapted from abstract]

This review assessed evidence on community-based diagnosis and care of malaria including investigation of interventions to improve the quality of services provided by community health workers (CHWs); strengthen referrals by CHWs to facility-based providers; build the capacity of health systems to support community case management; and integrate malaria diagnosis and case management with other health services at the community level. [adapted from summary]

Health worker migration from resource-poor countries to developed countries, also known as brain drain, represents a serious global health crisis and a significant barrier to achieving global health equity. Using acceptable methods of policy analysis, the authors assess current strategies aimed at alleviating brain drain and then propose a global health policy based solution to address current policy limitations. [adapted from abstract]

In 1997, regional specialist training was established in Fiji, consisting of one-year Postgraduate Diplomas followed by three-year master’s degree programs in anesthesia, internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics and surgery. The evolution of these programs during the first 12 years is presented in this article. [from abstract]

This study systematically evaluated a program to improve rural health services and reduce inequality in urban and rural services by requiring urban doctors to spend time in rural hospitals. The evaluation assessed changes over time in hospital performance and the rural-urban performance gap. [adapted from abstract]

This report details the results and impact of a human resources for health quality improvement intervention in Niger. The approach focused on teaching evidence-based human resources interventions that will improve health outcomes. [adapted from author]

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]

High-risk prescribing in primary care is common and causes considerable harm. Feedback interventions to improve care are attractive because they are relatively cheap to widely implement. There is good evidence that feedback has small to moderate effects, but the most recent Cochrane review called for more high-quality, large trials that explicitly test different forms of feedback. This paper describes a protocol for a cluster-randomised trial evaluating the impact on high-risk prescribing of two different designs of feedback compared to a simple educational message. [from author]

This analysis shows that a program to introduce emergency obstetric care and a referral system rapidly and significantly reduced the level of maternal mortality in two project areas in Burundi and Sierra Leone. [adapated from author]

Maternity care providers, particularly midwives, have a window of opportunity to influence pregnant women about positive health choices. This aim of this paper is to identify evidence of effective public health interventions from good quality systematic reviews that could be conducted by midwives. [from abstract]

This literature review sought evidence to better understand the lack of progress in solving the crisis in human resources for health despite known interventions: delegating tasks, investments in training, and upgrading health workers. It also addresses the lack of funding and political will to act in this field. [adapted from publisher]

The objective of this systematic review was to assess the effectiveness of strategies incorporating training and support of traditional birth attendants on the outcomes of perinatal, neonatal, and maternal death in developing countries. [from abstract]

This document is an evaluation of the implementation of a tool to assist in supervision, assessment and creation of action plans for quality improvement in facilities where TB is diagnosed and treated. [adapated from introduction]

The goal of this assessment was to evaluate the routine health Information system in Taraba state to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the health management information system unit in the state and its local government areas with a view to identifying risks that pose a threat to the implementation of software upgrades. [adapted from publisher]

The goal of this assessment was to evaluate the routine health Information system in Imo state to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the health management information system unit in the state and its local government areas with a view to identifying risks that pose a threat to the implementation of software upgrades. [adapted from publisher]

The goal of this assessment was to evaluate the routine health Information system in Oyo state to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the health management information system unit in the state and its local government areas with a view to identifying risks that pose a threat to the implementation of software upgrades. [adapted from publisher]

The goal of this assessment was to evaluate the routine health Information system in Niger state to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the health management information system unit in the state and its local government areas with a view to identifying risks that pose a threat to the implementation of software upgrades. [adapted from publisher]

The goal of this assessment was to evaluate the routine health Information system in Delta state to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the health management information system unit in the state and its local government areas with a view to identifying risks that pose a threat to the implementation of software upgrades. [adapted from publisher]

The goal of this assessment was to evaluate the routine health Information system in Kebbi state to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the health management information system unit in the state and its local government areas with a view to identifying risks that pose a threat to the implementation of software upgrades. [adapted from publisher]

This report uses a realist review, which is a theory-based method, to address the questions of why and how certain rural retention interventions work better in some contexts and fail in others. The report provides strong support for the assertion that a bundle of retention strategies should be used in order to successfully attract and retain health workers in remote and rural areas and provides insight into why interventions that were effective in one setting may or may not produce similar results in another. [adapted from preface]

The overall goal of this study was to evaluate whether two tools, developed to build the capacity of health workers globally to respond to their adolescent and young clients effectively and with sensitivity, improved the quality of service provision and experiences of care for reproductive health services to young female clients in two districts in India. [adapted from summary]

The objective of this review is to survey published documentation regarding health workers’ capacity for supply chain management in developing countries to provide insight about information gaps and needs for workforce excellence. [from abstract]

This survey of the Senegalese supply chain workforce was conducted using the “Human Resources Capacity for Public Health Supply Chain Management Assessment Guide” and evaluates the supply chain organization and personnel distribution, champion systems, policies and plans, workforce development, workforce efficiency, and professionalization efforts in the public health supply chain. [adapted from author]

This report provides an overview of an intercountry review and analysis of the present capacity, current status and functionality of HRH departments or units responsible for HRH actions in the ministries of health at the national level in the African Region of the World Health Organization. [adapted from introduction]

The present study is the first systematic review of the effectiveness of a variety of knowledge translation interventions in five allied health disciplines: dietetics, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physiotherapy, and speech-language pathology. [from abstract]

Task-shifting to lay community health providers is increasingly suggested as a potential strategy to overcome the barriers to sustainable antiretroviral treatment scale-up in high-HIV-prevalence, resource-limited settings. This article report on a systematic review of scientific evidence on the contributory role and function of these forms of community mobilisation. [adapted from abstract]

This study outlines a detailed analysis of the information needs of village health workers (ASHAs) in India to ascertain information needs, sources, and barriers at different levels of the health system; undertake an in-depth assessment of the health information needs of ASHAs; understand the role and functioning of health care networks; and assess access to and use of ICTs across different levels of the health system. [adapted from summary]