Documents & Reports

The article describes CapacityPlus’s rapid retention survey tool for determining the relative importance health workers place on characteristics related to their choice of employment. This will allow human resource maangers to rapidly assess retention preferences to better pinpoint the incentives and interventions that would most cost-effecively motivate health workers to take up posts in underserved facilities. [adapted from abstract]

This study is an examination of the state of medical education in Sub-Saharan Africa including all countries, all identified and recognized schools, and all languages of instruction. The study was undertaken to help provide a platform of understanding regarding the status, trends and present and future capacity building efforts for educators, policy makers, and international organizations. [from summary]

This summary report on the global nursing workforce is the first output from a program of work examining the crucial issue of nursing shortages, and identifying a framework for policy interventions. [from summary]

This study investigated the change of awareness and perception towards gender-based violence (GBV) following a training project in Vietnam designed to educate health workers on the issues; evaluated changes in practice in integrating screening and treatment of GBV victims into medical and reproductive health services; and solicited recommendations from health staff about future GBV interventions. [adapted from author]

This report documents how the use of performance and quality improvement (PQI), a technique for achieving desired performance at service delivery sites and within communities, has helped to improve skilled attendance, and shares some lessons learned about how best to use PQI in safe motherhood programs. [adapted from aouthor]

This qualitative study explores the career preferences of under-training and in-service doctors and nurses and identifies factors important to them to take up rural service. It then develops a framework for clustering these complex attributes into potential incentive packages for better rural recruitment and retention. [from abstract]

This study proposes methods for measuring inequalities in the distribution of health workers in a country by adapting techniques from the economics literature on income inequality to the measurement of health workforce distribution across geographical units. [from summary]

Health care organizations are in a key position to break the silence and offer critical care to women who might otherwise face violence and its health consequences for many years. Health professionals are often the earliest point of contact for survivors of gender-based violence. They are also in a unique position to change societal attitudes by reframing violence as a health problem. [from author]

This briefing booklet provides program officers and staff within USAID and partner organizations with field-based insights on how to integrate gender into HIV/AIDS programs, in a practical sense. The ability to address gender issues is central to the success of programs and reducing women and men’s vulnerability to HIV and its impacts. [from introduction]

This document is a response to a recommendation to compile best practices and lessons learnt to support and facilitate public-private partnerships with respect to their applicability for strengthening the public sector in low and middle income countries. This report focuses on the contribution of AIDS-related public-private partnerships to the six building blocks of health systems. [adapted from author]

The report provides available data on the health workforce in Potuguese-speaking
African countries to support the responsible staff and partners in identifying the needs for intervention to improve the national and regional capacity for the development of human resources for health. [adapted from summary]

This document outlines the Takamol project in which a corporate training and management methodology was adapted for developing and sustaining quality management teams from governorate to district to clinic levels. [adapted from author]

The objectives of this study were to establish a global baseline within five key result areas (human resources planning, management, education, practice and leadership); and evaluate the impact of country interventions to improve nursing and midwifery services considering past policy recommendations. [adapted from introduction]

This policy brief considers policy approaches that can be employed to help create positive work environments, thus improving the recruitment and retention of health professionals and contributing to the achievement of high quality health services. [from author]

This brief outlines a project conceived to tap the potential of telemedicine in Tanzania and to develop the relevant technology and practices. The project aimed to reduce the strain caused by a shortage of qualified personnel, contribute to training and continuous professional development; improve the quality of health services in rural areas; contribute to the establishment of a referral system; and be cost-effective.

Telemedicine offers solutions for emergency medical assistance, long-distance consultation, administration and logistics, supervision and quality assurance, and education and training for healthcare professionals and providers. This book aims to redress the relative lack of published information on successful telehealth solutions in the developing world. It includes chapters on topics such as the role of mHealth for community-based health workers in developing countries, IT for primary care, telemedical support for surgeons, and telehealth for remote areas. [adapted from author]

The development of a framework for human resource planning for the pharmaceutical secotr forms the basis for strengthening this sector. Thus the generation of evidence to support pharmaceutical human resources planning strategies is vital. This report is a preliminary assessment of the pharmaceutical workforce in Ghana. [from preface]

Lack of comprehensive data on personnel in the pharmaceutical sector is a gap in national human resource for health policies in most developing countries. This study was undertaken in order to determine the total workforce providing pharmaceutical services in both the public and private sectors in Tanzania. [from summary]

This paper aims to explore the current key issues facing Uganda’s health human resource climate with particular attention to practice environments including recruitment, retention and productivity of its health workforce, to identify the HR solutions that are being or have been employed to address these main challenges. The paper will also help in identifying knowledge gaps for future in-depth research and recommendations for future strategies. [from introduction]

This desk review has put together a situation analysis of the professional practice environment in Zambia today, bringing out a picture of unhealthy, unproductive work environments. [from summary]

This background paper to the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health discusses the critical role of human resources in meeting the MDGs. Human resources are the backbone of health systems, but if crucial HRH bottlenecks are not addressed it will not be possible to achieve the health MDGs. [adapted from author]

This paper examines the role of health workers in achieving MDGs 1, 4, 5, and 6. It calls for greater domestic and global attention – and the funding required – to comprehensively and effectively address health workforce issues in the context of the MDGs and developing equitable and accountable health systems. [from introduction]

This report focuses on AIDS donors and on how they can better use their funding to address health workforce issues. It introduces the HRH crisis, the evolving approaches of AIDS donors, how these approaches to health workforce strengthening and development have played out in practice in Mozambique, Uganda, and Zambia and makes recommendations meant to inform the ongoing deliberations of AIDS donors as they work out the implementation details of their health system strengthening commitments. [adapted from author]

Home Management of Malaria (HMM) is a strategy to improve acces to appropriate and effective malaria treatment in the community or home through early recognition of malaria symptoms and prompt treatment. To do this, volunteer members of the communities are trained to recognize fever, to administer treatment to children under five years of age when they find it, and to advise on follow-up treatment and prevention. They are monitored by a trained member of staff, such as a public health officer.

This important document strives to address the issues and challenges facing the health workforce in Belize and further strengthens the foundation upon which Belize continues to build a vision of quality health care for all Belizeans.[from author]

The Commission developed a value-based vision of the future that sees nurses and midwives in the mainstream of service planning, development and delivery, backed up by the necessary education, continuing professional development and supervision, and by supportive management and workplace cultures. This report endorses important existing effots, and where necessary proposes to accelerate the pace of change. It adds new thinking about how best nursing and midwifery can support service users, families and local communities. [from author]

This paper shows how Yemen’s Al Saba’een Hospital became a model for postpartum care and family planning services with limited resources. As a result of the success, the Yemeni government supports continued scale-up of these interventions to all of the country’s public hospitals and rural health facilities. [adapted from author]

This paper describes a project that has implemented an integrated male engagement program to address gender and family planning/reproductive health in a workplace HIV/AIDS Program. [from author]

This paper shows how the Extending Service Delivery improve maternal and newborn health in Egypt’s Kaliobia Governorate by scaling-up the government’s postpartum care package in 13 villages, and training community health workers and nurses to put the package into practice. [from author]

This framework on how to accelerate the implementation of the regional strategy for the development of human resources for health has been prepared to provide guidance and focus on priority actions that could lead to real and positive changes in countries in the WHO African region. [adapted from summary]