The Knowledge library

Knowledge Library

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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iHRIS Retain

iHRIS Retain is an open source tool to cost health worker retention interventions. People living in rural and remote areas need more skilled health workers to care for their communities. However, attracting and retaining health workers to serve in these areas is a challenge. Developed by CapacityPlus in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), iHRIS Retain is based on the WHO’s 2010 global policy recommendations on retention, which offer guidance on the different interventions in the areas of education, regulation, financial incentives, and professional development that can increase access to health workers in remote and rural areas through improved retention. iHRIS Retain guides users through the costing process step by step, collecting necessary data, calculating the costs of interventions, and comparing costs to available funding. The resulting information can then be used to develop retention strategies at the district, regional, or national level.

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Situational Analysis of the Twinning Center Para-Social Worker Training Program in Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Nigeria

CapacityPlus conducted a situational analysis of a para-social worker training program in three country contexts. Para-social workers are volunteers who have received training in foundational skills in basic social service delivery to help address the human resources crisis in delivering social services to vulnerable populations, including children. This analysis validated that the twinning model is adaptable and should be employed to build a cadre of para-social workers at the local level. The analysis also provides the needed data for promoting and funding twinning practices and creating para-social worker cadres as an emergency human resources response to serving children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS.

Ensuring a Positive Practice Environment: Occupational Safety and Health for Health Worker Productivity

Providing high-quality health care should not be hazardous to the health worker. Health workers are adversely affected by numerous occupational safety and health (OSH) hazards they face on the job. Effective OSH measures contribute to national workforce health and productivity, but only 5%-10% of workers in developing countries have adequate OSH services. This technical brief outlines ways to make health workers’ safety a higher-level policy issue and shows how to create working environments that prioritize occupational health.

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Championing a Regional Approach to Health Workforce Planning and Management

This profile of Professor Kayode Odusote draws on CapacityPlus’s technical brief, West Africa’s Regional Approach to Strengthening Health Workforce Information. It is part of the Aspen Institute’s Council Conversation Series: Stories and Solutions.

Achieving Excellence in the Supply Chain Workforce: The People that Deliver Global Partnership

CapacityPlus hosted an event, Achieving Excellence in the Supply Chain Workforce: The People that Deliver Global Partnership, at the XIX International AIDS Conference. The event highlighted the efforts of the People that Deliver global partnership, a global coalition working to improve the health supply chain workforce in developing countries. Recordings of all the presentations and the discussion session are available for health workforce leaders and others to learn from. Users are invited to continue the conversation.

Preferences for Working in Rural Clinics among Trainee Health Professionals in Uganda: A Discrete Choice Experiment

In low-income countries, failure to attract and retain health workers in rural areas reduces population access to health services and undermines facility performance, resulting in poor health outcomes. This article in BMC Health Services Research presents findings from CapacityPlus’s study on preferences for job characteristics among final-year medical, nursing, pharmacy, and laboratory students at select universities in Uganda. The findings contribute to mounting evidence that salary is not the only important factor health workers consider when deciding where to work.

« Nous voyons déjà la différence » : Renforcement du leadership et de la gestion des effectifs sanitaires des districts en Ouganda

Les participants à un cours sur le leadership et la gestion des ressources humaines pour la santé en Ouganda partagent leur point de vue sur un programme devant les aider à surmonter les défis rencontrés par les effectifs sanitaires au niveau des districts.