Policy and Planning

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the first-ever national application of the Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) tool developed by the World Health Organization. The article describes the steps involved in implementing WISN, a human resources management tool, in Namibia, discusses software and data challenges, summarizes key findings relating to health worker shortages and inequities, and reviews the utility of the WISN findings for policy-makers in Namibia. The authors observe that the WISN method can offer credible workload-based evidence to improve the equity and distribution of health workers within a region or across similar types of facilities nationwide. Perhaps most importantly, the WISN tool allows policy-makers to consider the potential impact of decisions on staff requirements before actually making the decisions.

CapacityPlus’s Dykki Settle contributed to this “Perspectives” feature in the special issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization published in conjunction with the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health. The article emphasizes the potential for leveraging recent investments in information technology infrastructure along with innovations in eHealth, mHealth, and social media in addressing global health workforce challenges. Ten recommendations are offered for training, empowering, and supporting health workers in resource-limited settings through the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The authors conclude that “the ICT ‘train’ has left the station. It remains to be seen whether the global health workforce will ride along or remain behind.”

This article—in a special issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization launched at the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health—explores the important role of community health workers in the effort to achieve universal health coverage. A range of current challenges related to inconsistent support for community health workers and failure to integrate them into national health systems has limited their potential contributions to primary health care. The article emphasizes the need for stronger public-sector leadership and more synergy among partners in better supporting and integrating community health workers as integral members of health teams that can increase accessibility and use of services.