Health Workforce Development

Health Workforce Education: Investing in the Next Generation of Health Workers

On April 14, 2015, CapacityPlus and SHOPS presented a webinar on innovative investment options for health workforce education and training. Over 40 participants joined in the session, which offered presentations and question-and-answer sessions with participants engaging both the speakers and each other. Access a recording of the webinar and view presentation slides. Read more »

Working Paper on the Role of Social Service Workforce Development in Care Reform

This working paper explores the topic of social service workforce development as it relates to child care reform. It is intended to be a useful resource for reform efforts and a practical overview for use by policy-makers, practitioners, and service providers in contexts that are either considering the implications of care reforms for their social service workforce or are already engaged in a process. The paper illustrates key issues by drawing on the experiences of Indonesia, Moldova, and Rwanda, three countries in the process of reform, each within their own context and history, social and political system, protection structure and services, and social service education system.

Scaling Up Health Workforce Education and Training: Guide for Applying the Bottlenecks and Best Buys Approach

Bottlenecks and Best BuysCapacityPlus’s Bottlenecks and Best Buys Approach is designed to help educational institutions identify obstacles to increasing the production of competent and qualified health workers that can be overcome through limited yet strategic investments. This guide identifies the stakeholders who should be involved, the steps in conducting a bottlenecks assessment, and a method for using the results to identify and build consensus on the most effective and affordable actions (best buys) for overcoming bottlenecks. It also provides tools and examples for strategic steps in the approach, such as engaging stakeholders, conducting a situation analysis, defining the school’s scale-up goal, leading group interviews, analyzing the results, and presenting the final bottlenecks and best buys report to external stakeholders and potential investors. Access the guide and annexes, along with related resources.

Graduate Tracking Systems for the Medical Schools in Africa: Processes for Developing an Implementation Framework

Human resources for health are critical for effective health systems. In Africa, the number of doctors and nurses required to provide essential health services will be deficient by an estimated 800,000 in 2015. Numerous interventions have been implemented to mitigate these shortages; tracking graduates from African universities is critical to determine whether interventions are effective. Based on a community of practice theory, a Graduate Tracking Technical Working Group was established within the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) network. The group, with CapacityPlus, developed graduate tracking requirements for MEPI institutions and countries through a collaborative process. A framework was created to guide the establishment of graduate tracking systems consisting of seven core processes or elements: 1) general requirements; 2) locate graduates; 3) collect/update information; 4) search and view information; 5) create tracking survey tools; 6) manage tracking survey response data; and 7) generate reports. CapacityPlus’s Dykki Settle contributed to this article in the journal’s MEPI supplement issue.

Overview of CapacityPlus’s Approaches and Tools for Scaling Up and Transforming Health Workforce Education

This presentation was given at the CapacityPlus knowledge-sharing and dissemination event, Transforming and Scaling Up Health Workforce Education and Training for Health Equity, held on March 18, 2014, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Scaling Up Health Worker Production: The Bottlenecks and Best Buys Approach

Countries need to rapidly scale up the production of health workers in order to ensure universal access to health care and address the global shortage of over four million doctors, nurses, midwives, and support workers. In many cases, small but targeted investments in the preservice education of health workers can lead to measurable increases in the production of qualified and competent graduates. This technical brief presents an overview of an approach to help identify critical bottlenecks to providing quality preservice education and prioritize affordable actions for increasing the quantity of graduates while maintaining or improving the quality of education.

Innovative Financing Options for the Preservice Education of Health Professionals

Many developing countries are making significant investments to increase the number of health workers available to provide care to growing populations. However, the available funding is far short of what is required. For these countries to train and produce a health workforce sufficient to meet the populations’ needs, new sources of funding for health worker education need to be found. To address this problem, CapacityPlus partnered with the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank, and the Global Health Workforce Alliance in an exploration of innovative financing of health worker education. This technical brief presents a summary of the forms of financing proposed or documented through this process.

Keeping Up to Date: Continuing Professional Development for Health Workers in Developing Countries

In order for health workers to provide quality care and meet their communities’ changing health care needs, they must become lifelong learners dedicated to updating their professional knowledge, skills, values, and practice. This technical brief summarizes the literature concerning current best practices and innovative ideas in continuing professional development (CPD). It is targeted toward people who run or advise CPD programs.

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Innovative Financing for Preservice Education

A brief summary of some innovative forms of financing for health professional schools to consider. The full version is available as CapacityPlus Technical Brief #8.

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