Second Global Forum on HRH

Linking Faith-Based Health Care with Ministries of Health

jennifer — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:42:17 +0000

Over the past year and a half, CapacityPlus has supported faith-based organizations’ (FBOs) ability to manage their health workforces and provide high quality care to underserved populations. Recently, we held a side session as part of the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health to help strengthen linkages between the FBO community and ministries of health and provide strategies and tactics for how to bring about this increased integration.

With these objectives in mind, the group discussion centered on two key questions:

What should the FBO community do to promote the integration and linkages between them and national-level health workforce policies and practices?

What should workforce decision-makers and human resources professionals within ministries of health do to strengthen linkages with the FBO community?

Author's name:

Wilma Gormley

Publication Date:

February 2011

Without the User, There Is No System: Harnessing Technology through the eHealth Workforce

jennifer — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:39:26 +0000

This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

When we talk about building strong health systems and the health workers to run these systems, we often think about doctors or nurses or community health workers. Just as crucial to health systems are robust health information systems that help manage and make accessible information about patients, clinics, budgets, payroll, and all the other details that make a health care system work.

When it comes to building a strong electronic health (eHealth) information system, the user is, arguably, the most important part.

Still weak, but growing
An eHealth workforce requires system administrators, programmers, and analysts who sustain and extend a country’s health information systems and eHealth technologies. Many countries in the developing world have growing but weak information and communication systems, which makes building the eHealth infrastructure system an ongoing challenge.

Author's name:

Dykki Settle

Publication Date:

March 2011

Transforming a Thai Hospital through Pay for Performance

jennifer — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:50:45 +0000

Aboard a tour bus covered in enormous fuchsia flowers, we traveled through the Bangkok morning rush hour. This we knew: we were in for an eye-opening field trip as part of the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health.

Our destination that day was Chachoengsao Province—130 km (or 81 miles) from Bangkok— where we had the opportunity to see firsthand the transformation of the Phanom Sarakham Community Hospital and how it’s working toward establishing a pay for performance scheme.

Charismatic leadership
The hospital was previously considered one of the most run-down in Thailand, beset by persistently poor service quality and low staff morale.

Author's name:

Wilma Gormley and Paul Marsden

Publication Date:

February 2011

Health Workforce Action after Bangkok

jennifer — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:50:50 +0000

Recently a thousand people gathered in Bangkok for the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health. Since then many of us have been reflecting on where to focus our energies. Here’s what’s been on my mind.

Communicating about the crisis and its solutions
The forum opened with a wonderful video on health workers—the best piece in any medium I have ever seen in terms of communicating the essence of the health workforce crisis.

Effective communication about the issues—and how to resolve them—is vital to garnering the support we need to make real progress. To the extent possible, we should commit sufficient resources to this effort.

Author's name:

Maurice I. Middleberg

Publication Date:

February 2011

Retaining Health Workers in Rural Kenya: What We Can Learn from Other Countries

jennifer — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:04:52 +0000

This is an excerpt from an original post on the IntraHealth International blog.

In the northern arid lands and other remote parts of Kenya, the Capacity Kenya project has been working with the Ministry of Health to design simple packages to attract health workers and encourage them to stay. Starting with a selected list of diverse pilot sites, the project set out to design intervention packages, implement them, and systematically evaluate their impact on health worker retention over time.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Bangkok, which gave me a unique opportunity to learn about the struggles, successes, and constraints of other countries. As I listened to the experiences of others and what they see as best practices, I kept thinking about what new interventions might work best in the Kenyan context.

Author's name:

Achim Chiaji

Publication Date:

February 2011

Local Solutions, Global Solidarity, and Accountability

jennifer — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:26:10 +0000

This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

While the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health was full of opportunities, it was also quite deficient in addressing the one global issue that continues to hold back progress to achieving most of the health goals—the Millennium Development Goal 8: Global Partnership for Development. I do, however, remain optimistic.

In my country, Kenya, there is considerable awareness of the health workforce problem and there is momentum to act on many fronts. The Capacity Kenya project has worked closely with the Ministry of Health and others to develop a national Human Resources for Health Strategic Plan, which established national priorities for addressing Kenya’s workforce constraints.

Author's name:

Meshack Ndolo

Publication Date:

February 2011

What Brought Us Here Won’t Get Us There: Implementing Country-Level Health Workforce Development Plans

jennifer — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:16:43 +0000

CapacityPlus works with the Uganda Ministry of Health to enhance workforce performance support, including field testing the project’s global rapid discrete choice experiment (DCE) tool to address attraction and retention of health worker cadres in rural and remote areas and a retention costing tool, iHRIS Retain. This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

Three years ago, we met in Kampala, Uganda to discuss the critical needs of the global health workforce. Last week in Bangkok we gathered to take stock of what we’ve accomplished since.

Today, 86% of the 51 countries surveyed in the progress report on implementing the Kampala Declaration and Agenda for Global Action have a national human resources for health plan, but only 41% are actually implementing that plan.

Author's name:

Vincent Oketcho

Publication Date:

February 2011

Removing the Blindfold: Mapping Health Worker Schools to Improve Education

jennifer — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:32:42 +0000

The transformative scale-up of health worker education can be like the game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. We know so little about health worker education that it often feels like we’re playing blindfolded.

Recognizing that we can’t really transform health worker education until we know where health schools are located, the World Health Organization organized a panel at the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Bangkok to discuss global mapping of health worker educational institutions.

I was invited to speak about the mapping of nursing schools.

Author's name:

Shaun Noronha

Publication Date:

January 2011

Conventional and Thai Traditional Medicine: Visiting Uthong Hospital

jennifer — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:04:51 +0000

Uthong 1

Uthong 2

Uthong 3

Uthong 4

Uthong 5

Uthong 6

Uthong 7

Uthong 8

At Uthong Hospital—a 150-bed community facility in Amphur-Uthong, Supanburi Province, Thailand—I had the opportunity to learn how the staff integrate both conventional medicine and Thai traditional therapies. Located about two hours away from Bangkok, the field trip was part of the busy week-long events at the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health.

Author's name:

David Nelson

Publication Date:

January 2011

Exploring the Siriraj Hospital at the Second Global Forum on HRH

jennifer — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:52:02 +0000

Despite the 6:30 a.m. reporting time, the field trip to Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok—part of the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health—turned out to be one of the best events of the week.

Siriraj Hospital, part of Mahidol University, is the oldest and largest hospital in Thailand. We were told that the attached medical school produces about a quarter of all Thai medical graduates.

Besides its numerical strength, the school also pays great attention to a number of issues relevant to the transformative scale-up of health worker education.

Author's name:

Shaun Noronha

Publication Date:

January 2011

HRH in Africa Day: Translating African National Strategies into Successful Programs

jennifer — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:38:06 +0000

After many years of stagnation, the time has come for human resources for health (HRH) to be seen as a critical issue for Africa's development agenda.

Supporting African HRH efforts
At the HRH in Africa Day—a side session at the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Bangkok—representatives from the African public sector, technical experts from universities, donor and technical assistance agencies, and nongovernmental organizations debated how to support countries to translate their national HRH strategies into successful programs.

Author's name:

Richard Seifman

Publication Date:

January 2011

Country-Led Health Workforce Planning and Implementation in the Dominican Republic

jennifer — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:52:06 +0000

I was delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate face-to-face with Dr. Sonia Brito-Anderson recently. She leads CapacityPlus’s efforts to facilitate the development of a human resources strategy framework and implementation plan for the Ministry of Health in the Dominican Republic.

Along with other CapacityPlus colleagues—including Wilma Gormley, Mesrak Belatchew, and Dana Singleton—our task is to work with a national technical group, established by the Ministry of Health, to identify the key HR challenges and help to produce a strategy framework and implementation plan that is both feasible and doable.

Where are the health workers?
The Dominican Republic has a comparatively high number of health workers, yet maternal mortality rates and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV coverage remain poor.

Author's name:

Paul Marsden

Publication Date:

January 2011

What’s Really Holding Us Back? Resolving the Health Workforce Crisis

Sarah Dwyer — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:25:16 +0000

Lately I’ve been thinking about the big picture in the global health workforce crisis. What’s keeping us from getting where we need to be?

On the one hand, we’ve come a long way in just a few years. Since the release of the 2006 World Health Report and the First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in 2008, we’ve made notable progress:

Awareness of the health workforce crisis is now pervasive; this is reflected in high-level declarations of both developing and developed nations.

We’ve amassed a large body of knowledge and practical experience.

There is emerging consensus on the actions needed on a range of issues, from retention to community health workers to task-shifting.

Many countries have developed health workforce strategies.

A few countries (Ethiopia’s a great example) have made remarkable progress in expanding access to qualified health workers.

On the other hand, let’s face it: progress has been slow.

Access to health workers with the right skills is still denied to millions of people. We’re not yet where we need to be. What are the root causes of this unsatisfactory progress?

At the core is a failure of implementation.

Author's name:

Maurice I. Middleberg

Publication Date:

January 2011