Over the course of our 40-year history, IntraHealth International has consistently designed creative solutions to health workforce challenges. From new technologies to old-fashioned human storytelling, we find new solutions to longstanding problems.  

In a new technical publication, we highlight seven examples of how and why we look for new ways to get results. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside The Future of Global Health Starts Here: 7 Creative Approaches to Health Workforce Challenges. 

Funding the Next Generation of Health Workers in Kenya 

The low-interest student loan program Afya Elimu is a public-private partnership that serves future nurses, clinical officers, medical laboratory technicians, pharmaceutical technologists, nutritionists, health record information officers, and public health officers—cadres that form the bulk of the health workforce in Kenya and are critical to achieving universal health coverage.  

Communicating with Health Workers on the Front Lines of Pandemics 

In 2014, during the world’s largest-ever outbreak of the Ebola virus, IntraHealth and UNICEF used existing iHRIS software to create mHero—a platform for health workers and health officials to stay connected via SMS messaging during the pandemic. 

Building a Culture of Quality in Senegal’s Primary Health Care Facilities

In Senegal, a facility-based mentoring system called Tutorat focuses on the specific needs of health workers by taking a customized approach to assessing performance gaps, improving individual performance, and addressing individual learning needs. 

Using Data to Reduce Absenteeism in Uganda 

In Uganda, IntraHealth helped the Ministry of Health effectively reduce absenteeism rates through regular tracking and analysis of data using biometric machines that scan thumbprints of every medical worker and register time of arrival and departure at health facilities.  

Advocacy by Frontline Health Workers 

Frontline health workers are using their stories to influence policy and increase investment in the global health workforce. With funding from Medtronic Foundation, we trained health workers to tell their stories of fighting noncommunicable diseases at forums such as the World Health Assembly, US congressional briefings, and the UN Commission on the Status of Women. 

Senegal’s Informed Push Model 

IntraHealth and partners developed a nationwide supply distribution approach that relies on private, third-party logistics providers to capture real-time data to proactively predict and manage stock of contraceptives at the facility level. The pilot phase of the Informed Push Model increased the use of modern contraceptives by more than 90% in some regions. 

Strengthening Health Workers’ Capacity to Serve Key Populations with Stigma-Free HIV Services 

IntraHealth led the development of a training guide to help health workers better serve the needs of men who have sex with men, transgender individuals, sex workers, and other members of key populations through Health4All, part of the global USAID- and PEPFAR-funded LINKAGES initiative managed by FHI360.  

Read it now: The Future of Global Health Starts Here: 7 Creative Approaches to Health Workforce Challenges 

This publication is part of a landscape analysis of innovation at IntraHealth commissioned by its chief technical officer, Dai Hozumi, in 2019. Donors that supported the work above include the United States Agency for International Development, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Merck for Mothers, and the Medtronic Foundation.