Retention

This article posits that out-migration of health workers is not a critical contributor to health workforce shortages in Nigeria’s rural and remote areas and that more important factors include: contraction of government health spending as a percentage of GDP despite deteriorating health conditions, public health management systems that operate by default rather than by design, spartan living conditions outside urban areas, inadequate training of appropriate cadres of health staff, limited facilities and medications for effective delivery of clinical services, and burnout of overworked and unde

This toolkit was designed for nurse employers across the province of Ontario to use as a resource in working toward the 70% full-time nurse commitment. It is a practical guide to assist Nurse Managers and Human Resource Staff in identifying staffing needs and creating organization-specific strategies to increase full-time employment for nurses. [from author]

This technical brief focuses on issues around health worker motivation, job satisfaction, incentives, retention and performance. [from author]

The objective of this study was to analyse in what way HRH recruitment, deployment and retention at the district level are influenced by external funding; and to what extent this is in line with national and district policies and strategies. [from abstract]

Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is severe competition for personnel and staff time between various health programmes and between public and private providers. Such competition is reinforced by the vertical nature of various funding mechanisms supported by bilateral donors, international NGOs and global initiatives. The objective of this study was to analyse in what way HRH recruitment, deployment and retention at the district level are influenced by externally funded programmes. [from summary]

This study sought to gain understanding of the motivations of community service (CS) officers to continue working at the same district hospital for a subsequent year after their obligatory year was over. The objectives were to determine the number of CS officers who actually remained at the same district hospital after completing their CS in 2002, the major factors that influenced them to remain and factors that would encourage the 2003 cohort of CS officers to remain at the same district hospital for an additional year. [from abstract]

Most of the district health services in Malawi are provided by nurses and clinical health officers specially trained to provide services that would normally be provided by fully qualified doctors or specialists. This study explores how these cadres are managed and motivated and the impact this has on their performance. [adapted from abstract]

This study analyzed data from a human resources health facility survey conducted in Kenya. The study looked into the status of attrition rates and the proportion of attrition due to retirement, resignation or death among doctors, clinical officers, nurses and laboratory and pharmacy specialists in surveyed facilities. [adapted from abstract]

Traditionally, faith-based health organisations have been important health care providers in many remote and other under-serviced areas. Currently, these facilities bear the brunt of the competition for scarce human resources. It is important for faith-based organisations to learn from recent experiences and from the creative ways in which colleagues seek to retain their health workers and improve quality of human resource management. The accompanying guide contains case studies based on Quest for Quality for in-country discussion. [from preface]

Retention continues to be a serious challenge in the human resources for health crisis. There is increasingly widespread commitment to initiatives to attract and retain skilled workers, especially in rural areas. The purpose of this brief is to update and document some contributions made from 2005 to 2008 in the area of worker retention. [from author]

Mid-level cadres of health workers provide the bulk of emergency obstetric and neonatal care in Malawi. This study set out to explore the perceptions of mid-level providers regarding the factors affecting their performance and retention within the Malawian health system. [adapted from author]

This paper serves as background documentation for the first expert meeting for developing the evidence-based recommendations for increasing access to health workers in remote and rural areas through improved retention, to be held in Geneva on 2-4 February 2009. It is intended to provide an overview of the issues, challenges and potential solutions to the problem of inequitable access to health workers in remote and rural areas. [from introduction}

This presentation outlines the work on retention, incentives and positive practice environments as it relates to the Kampala Declaration.

This presentation outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the DCE, an increasingly popular methodology for eliciting health worker preferences regarding rural jobs. [adapted from author]

This presentation reviews the current state of health worker retention in rural areas, discusses interventions aimed at addressing the problem and describes the challenges and directions for solving it.

This presentation outlines the World Health Organization’s (WHO) efforts to scale up health care delivery in rural areas through health care worker retention programs.

Health human resource (HHR) strategies for Canadian rehabilitation professionals are lagging behind other professional groups such as physicians and nurses. The objectives of this study were: 1) to identify recruitment and retention strategies of rehabilitation professionals including occupational therapists, physical therapists and speech language pathologists from the literature; and 2) to investigate both the importance and feasibility of the identified strategies using expert panels amongst HHR and education experts. [from abstract]

This presentation details the issues of migration and retention in Swaziland.

This country study in Swaziland thus sought to map and assess incentives for retaining heath workers, particularly non-financial incentives. Specifically it sought to identify existing policies and measures for incentives for retention of health workers, their relevance to current factors driving exit and retention, and propose inputs for guidelines for introducing and managing incentives for health worker retention to maximize their positive impact. [from summary]

While the recruitement of rural doctors is steadily rising, there is concern about their long-term retention. In response, an orientation course for recently established rural doctors was set up in 2003, based on a training needs assessment. This paper draws lessons from this experience, focusing on processes and mechanisms operating in the relation between training and retention in rural practice. [adapted from author]

This presentation on health worker retention in rural area was offered during a dialogue hosted by the WHO and OECD.

This document discusses the in-country ownership of health initiatives from the Health Sector Strategic Plan focusing on critical areas such as retention, recruitment and occupational safety.

The United States has the largest professional nurse workforce in the world but does not produce enough nurses to meet its growing demand. The U.S. is now the world’s major importer of nurses, but the shortage is too large to be solved by recruitment abroad without depleting world nursing resources. The national shortage could be largely addressed by investments in expanding nursing school capacity. [adapted from summary]

This report reviews the current HRH status in eighteen targeted countries in the Asia-Pacific region. It focuses primarily on health education and training; the distribution and retention of health workers; and community health workers. [adapted from abstract]

Health worker retention is critical for health system performance and a key problem is how best to motivate and retain health workers. The authors undertook a systematic review to consolidate existing evidence on the impact of financial and non-financial incentives on motivation and retention. [from abstract]

This paper investigates the impact of the framework and strategies to retain critical health professionals (CHPs) that the Zimbabwean government has put in place, particularly regarding non-financial incentives, in the face of continuing high out-migration. [from summary]

All long-term care agencies struggle to find and keep sufficient, reliable, and skilled staff capable of meeting client needs and providing great quality care. This workbook offers 12 concrete steps to guide agencies in developing excellent recruitment, selection and retention practices

The objectives of this paper are to highlight the situation of health workers in Pacific and Asian countries to gain a better understanding of the contributing factors to health worker motivation, dissatisfaction and migration; examine the regional and global evidence on initiatives to retain a competent and motivated health workforce, especially in rural and remote areas; and suggest ways to address the shortages of health workers in Pacific and Asian countries by using incentives. [from abstract]

This paper looks at the HRH crisis as experienced by the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau network giving the trend, examining the reasons, the destinations of attritional cases and what the network is trying to do to improve human resource stability. [from abstract]

This article describes the experience of the Family Life Education Programme, a reproductive health program that provides community-based health services through 40 clinics in five districts of Uganda, in improving retention and performance by using the Human Resource Management Rapid Assessment Tool. [adapted from abstract]