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In September and October, the IntraHealth International-led CapacityPlus project published three technical briefs as part of its growing comprehensive suite of resources and tools for countries to use to strengthen their health workforces and address shortages, unequal geographical distribution, and other challenges.
There are now a total of 16 technical briefs covering key topics such as leadership, human resources information systems and informed decision-making, HR management, integration of HIV/AIDS and family planning, training and education, gender equality, and workforce effectiveness, all with a health workforce focus in order to improve accessibility and quality of family planning, HIV/AIDS, and other health services.
The suite of resources also includes more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and eight eLearning courses, as well as specialized tools like the free and open source iHRIS software for managing health worker data and the Rapid Retention Survey Toolkit for determining health workers’ motivational preferences for accepting posts in rural and underserved areas.
The three new briefs provide new evidence and practice recommendations related to health professional school leadership, faith-based organizations, and retention.
Health Professional School Leadership
Health professional schools are a valuable—yet often overlooked—source of leadership in health reform and health policy-making. In most countries, these schools are not actively shaping national health policies even though the policies have a large impact on how they train the next generation of health workers.
Health Professional School Leadership and Health Sector Reform, Performance, and Practice highlights examples of how some leaders of health professional schools have engaged, influenced, or obtained resources from national policy-makers and others with significant influence on the health sector. The brief also reviews instances in which schools and professional associations have worked to shape national responses to health system needs.
The brief is authored by Kate Tulenko of IntraHealth, Richard Seifman, and Ok Pannenborg of the CapacityPlus Global Advisory Board on Strengthening Medical, Nursing, and Public Health Schools in Developing Countries.
Faith-Based Organizations
Faith-based organizations own and operate up to 70% of health facilities in some African countries, train large numbers of health workers, and reach many remote communities where the public sector has difficulty attracting and retaining health workers. Yet these organizations are often absent from national health workforce plans and resource allocations.
Partnering with African Faith-Based Organizations for a Strong Health Workforce brings to light how African faith-based organizations have improved their health workforces and are better integrating their efforts into national health systems. The brief presents examples from the Africa Christian Health Associations Platform (ACHAP), an advocacy and networking organization made up of 34 Christian or church health associations in 28 sub-Saharan African countries.
The brief highlights ACHAP’s and its members’ achievements, from negotiating practical memoranda of understanding with government to using iHRIS to provide a complete picture of the national health workforce and inform health worker recruitment and deployment. The brief also provides lessons learned and offers recommendations for furthering faith-based organizations’ efforts.
The brief is authored by Doris Mwarey, Craig Hafner, and Theresa Nyamupachitu of IMA World Health.
Retention
Effective policies to address health workforce challenges should be informed by relevant data; however, the availability of evidence does not guarantee that national health leaders will use it for decision-making.
Using Evidence for Human Resources for Health Decision-Making: An Example from Uganda on Health Workforce Recruitment and Retention explains how countries can build interest, momentum, and political will to make policy decisions for health workforce recruitment and retention strategies. Based on a literature review and experience in Uganda, the authors offer recommendations and examples to help health leaders turn evidence into effective policy decisions and subsequent action. For example, as improving recruitment and retention of health workers is an important part of Uganda’s health sector strategic plan, the Ministry of Health used data from applying the Rapid Retention Survey Toolkit and iHRIS to formulate retention strategy and policy recommendations.
The brief is authored by Rachel Deussom and Wanda Jaskiewicz of IntraHealth.
Read more:
In September and October, the IntraHealth International-led CapacityPlus project published three technical briefs as part of its growing comprehensive suite of resources and tools for countries to use to strengthen their health workforces and address shortages, unequal geographical distribution, and other challenges.
There are now a total of 16 technical briefs covering key topics such as leadership, human resources information systems and informed decision-making, HR management, integration of HIV/AIDS and family planning, training and education, gender equality, and workforce effectiveness, all with a health workforce focus in order to improve accessibility and quality of family planning, HIV/AIDS, and other health services.
The suite of resources also includes more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and eight eLearning courses, as well as specialized tools like the free and open source iHRIS software for managing health worker data and the Rapid Retention Survey Toolkit for determining health workers’ motivational preferences for accepting posts in rural and underserved areas.
The three new briefs provide new evidence and practice recommendations related to health professional school leadership, faith-based organizations, and retention.
Health Professional School Leadership
Health professional schools are a valuable—yet often overlooked—source of leadership in health reform and health policy-making. In most countries, these schools are not actively shaping national health policies even though the policies have a large impact on how they train the next generation of health workers.
Health Professional School Leadership and Health Sector Reform, Performance, and Practice highlights examples of how some leaders of health professional schools have engaged, influenced, or obtained resources from national policy-makers and others with significant influence on the health sector. The brief also reviews instances in which schools and professional associations have worked to shape national responses to health system needs.
The brief is authored by Kate Tulenko of IntraHealth, Richard Seifman, and Ok Pannenborg of the CapacityPlus Global Advisory Board on Strengthening Medical, Nursing, and Public Health Schools in Developing Countries.
Faith-Based Organizations
Faith-based organizations own and operate up to 70% of health facilities in some African countries, train large numbers of health workers, and reach many remote communities where the public sector has difficulty attracting and retaining health workers. Yet these organizations are often absent from national health workforce plans and resource allocations.
Partnering with African Faith-Based Organizations for a Strong Health Workforce brings to light how African faith-based organizations have improved their health workforces and are better integrating their efforts into national health systems. The brief presents examples from the Africa Christian Health Associations Platform (ACHAP), an advocacy and networking organization made up of 34 Christian or church health associations in 28 sub-Saharan African countries.
The brief highlights ACHAP’s and its members’ achievements, from negotiating practical memoranda of understanding with government to using iHRIS to provide a complete picture of the national health workforce and inform health worker recruitment and deployment. The brief also provides lessons learned and offers recommendations for furthering faith-based organizations’ efforts.
The brief is authored by Doris Mwarey, Craig Hafner, and Theresa Nyamupachitu of IMA World Health.
Retention
Effective policies to address health workforce challenges should be informed by relevant data; however, the availability of evidence does not guarantee that national health leaders will use it for decision-making.
Using Evidence for Human Resources for Health Decision-Making: An Example from Uganda on Health Workforce Recruitment and Retention explains how countries can build interest, momentum, and political will to make policy decisions for health workforce recruitment and retention strategies. Based on a literature review and experience in Uganda, the authors offer recommendations and examples to help health leaders turn evidence into effective policy decisions and subsequent action.
One recommendation is to ensure evidence generation informs a country-owned mandate. As improving recruitment and retention of health workers is an important part of Uganda’s health sector strategic plan, the Ministry of Health applied the Rapid Retention Survey Toolkit to gather information from health professional students and currently practicing health workers to identify what would motivate them to accept a position and continue working in an underserved facility. The findings, coupled with health workforce distribution data from Uganda’s iHRIS, were used to formulate retention strategy and policy recommendations.
The brief is authored by Rachel Deussom and Wanda Jaskiewicz of IntraHealth.
Read more: