New Article Provides Guidance for Putting Health Workforce Tools into Action
CapacityPlus’s James McCaffery published an article in a special issue of a Peruvian medical journal focused on human resources for health (HRH). Overcoming the hurdle of implementation: Putting human resources for health tools into action appears in volume 28 of Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Pública.
In 2006 the World Health Organization reported that 57 countries had a critical shortage of health workers—defined as fewer than 2.3 service providers for every 1,000 people. Today, all 57 countries are still below this threshold. Many countries have made progress, but the improvements have not been substantive enough to move them out of the crisis category. McCaffery points to a lack of sustained implementation of countries’ HRH strategic plans, and asserts that HRH leaders can move forward by ensuring that currently-available tools are put to use.
The paper highlights four tools and provides recommendations on how to support results-oriented implementation. The recommendations are organized around three linked components:
- Providing sufficient advocacy to leadership at the national level to mobilize and commit them to implementation action
- Assembling and managing the requisite assets (including the institutional arrangements, people, and money) into a coherent and powerful whole
- Using accountability as a foundational tool to assess progress in implementation, track key indicators, celebrate achieving key milestones, and identify problems when indicators are not achieved.
The article is also available in Spanish as Superando el obstáculo de la implementación: poniendo en acción las herramientas para la promoción de recursos humanos en salud. The complete contents of the special issue are available on the journal’s website.
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