Human Resources Management

This mid-term evaluation report focuses on Capacity Project support to the Government of Kenya’s Emergency Hiring Plan. It assesses the main achievements, challenges and impact on service delivery and health systems improvement, from the plan’s inception through the November 2007 mid-point. The report outlines all aspects of the approach used, providing clear recommendations on how the Ministry of Health may strengthen its existing human resource systems on the basis of lessons learned, and provides additional insights to the process, which may be useful for informing similar country contexts.

This paper reports on the design and implementation of a completely new pay system in the National Health Service (NHS) in England.Pay and pay systems are a critical element in any health sector human resource strategy. Changing a pay system can be one strategy to achieve or sustain organizational change. [from abstract]

Two crises dominate the health sectors of sub-Saharan African countries: those of human resources and of HIV. There is considerable variation in the extent to which these two phenomena affect sub-Saharan countries, with a few facing extreme levels of both. This paper reviews the continent-wide situation with respect to this double burden before considering the case of Malawi in more detail. [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]

Despite rising attention to the acute shortage of health care workers, solutions to the human resource crisis are difficult to achieve, especially in the poorest countries. Although we are aware of the issues and have developed HR strategies, the problem is that some old systems of leading and managing human resources for health do not work in today's context. In these cases and others, a more appropriate mode of leadership, linked to reforming management systems and committed to moving beyond planning to implementation, is essential to the solution. [from abstract]

The purpose of this study was to identify and recommend strategies for tackling the underlying issues in the human resources for health (HRH) management process in Uganda with an eye towards addressing the HRH crisis. [from executive summary]

Modernizing the way health care professionals are educated and engaged in their vital work requires a collaborative and coordinated approach among many players. The Health Council convened the summit on health human resources to focus on practical, short-term solutions. This report attempts to capture the lively discussion and encouraging examples of innovation brought forward at that forum, organized into four theme areas: education and training, scopes of practice, workplace practices and planning. [adapted from author]

Management Sciences for Health has developed an approach to helping managers become more like coaches, which has proven successful in various settings. This issue of the eManager will help you examine your managerial practices and give you the tools to expand your role from manager to manager as coach.

This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It defines health leadership and management, why strengthening it is important, the lessons learned so far, and the main components and uses of the WHO framework. [adapted from author]

This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It outlines the internal and external environmental issues for district medical officers and describes what these officers need in terms of support.

This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It discusses the impact of human resource managment on health and details a work climate assessment from Kenya.

In an initiative to collate experiences on management development in low resource settings, WHO carried out case studies to explore management development approaches and how these impacted managerial and service delivery performance. [adapted from author]

The Institute of Health Management Research conceived an operational research project to develop and test key management interventions in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the district health system and services at the district level. [from author]

Capacity management systems create insight into required resources like staff and equipment. For inpatient hospital care, capacity management requires information on beds and nursing staff capacity, on a daily as well as annual basis. This paper presents a comprehensive capacity model that gives insight into required nursing staff capacity and opportunities to improve capacity utilization on a ward level. [from abstract]

A healthcare system that supports effective teamwork can improve the quality of patient care, enhance patient safety, and reduce workload issues that cause burnout among healthcare professionals. To support the movement to make teamwork a reality, this report was commissioned to outline the characteristics of an effective team, how to measure its effectiveness, what interventions have been successful in implementing and sustaining teamwork in healthcare, lessons from other settings and countries, and the barriers to implementation in Canada. [adapted from executive summary]

This study is meant to enable the Christian Social Services Commission to strengthen the coordination of the health personnel hired by church hospitals. On the part of the administration of the hospitals, the study is meant to harmonize the criteria and principles on which the management of the health staff can be based. The study is ultimately to lead to a human resource policy package, which in turn should lead to the production of a Health Personnel Management Policy Manual for the church hospitals coordinated by the CSSC. [adapted from author]

This HRH policy document addresses the production and utilization of Human Resources within the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone. It also responds to the contemporary challenges and developments including the exodus of human resources and advancement in technology. This policy intends to regulate and direct planning, production, management, utilization and monitoring of HR within the health sector. [from foreword]

This Self-Assessment Inventory outlines the major areas of competence an effective supervisor must have. The competency areas are sub-divided into categories which correspond to the major functions supervisors perform. Its primary use is as a self-assessment tool. Individuals are encouraged to use it to assess their competence and performance as supervisors and use the results to develop a plan for improvement. This Inventory can also be used as a guide to curriculum development for Supervisory Training, using the components as the basis for a needs assessment exercise. [purpose]

We are immersed in a global nursing workforce crisis – one marked by a critical shortage of nurses. The reasons for the shortage are varied and complex, but key among them are unhealthy work environments that weaken performance or alienate nurses and, too often, drive them away ? from specific work settings or from the nursing profession itself. This kit is designed to provide data on positive practice environments to all health stakeholders who are interested in improving the delivery of quality services. [from introduction]

Australian remote area nurses (RANs) are specialist advanced practice nurses. They work in unique, challenging and sometimes dangerous environments to provide a diverse range of healthcare services to remote and predominantly Aboriginal communities. There is an emerging skills gap in the remote nursing workforce as experienced and qualified RANs leave this demanding practice. There is a shortage of new nurses interested in working in these areas, and many of those who enter remote practice leave after a short time. Distance management was examined in order to gain a better understanding of its effects on the retention of RANs. Distance management in this context occurs when the health service’s line management team is located geographically distant from the workplace they are managing. [introduction]

This good practice guide is intended as a practical guide for trust boards and managers to help them to use temporary nursing staff effectively. The guide comprises a narrative of the salient points in the use and management of temporary nursing staff and includes a number of good practice checklists. It also provides case studies drawn from study visits and the work of the Department of Health’s National Agency Staffing Project. [from preface]

The question guiding the paper is: "What are the key ingredients of a high-quality work environment in Canada’s health care sector and how can this goal be achieved?" Synthesizing insights from a variety of research streams, the paper identifies many ingredients needed to create a high-quality workplace. We take a multidisciplinary and holistic approach, which complements other research initiatives on health human resources. [from abstract]

The purpose and objectives of this study are to examine the extent to which the manager’s span of control influences nurse, patient, and unit outcomes; and investigate which particular leadership style contributes to optimum nurse, patient, and unit outcomes under differing spans of control. [author's description]

This framework encompasses the healthcare workforce planning skills and competences required at both strategic and operational level, for all types of staff, including chief executives, directors, clinicians, service development managers, ward managers, workforce planners, and contributes to the building of capability in human resource management identified in the HR in the NHS Plan. [publisher's description]

This report describes a pilot program aimed at transplanting a pioneering workforce change process developed in the United Kingdom to the United States to address the growing health care workforce shortage. The program includes numerous techniques that have helped hundreds of English hospital teams learn a structured process for generating new ways of working. The program ensures that good human resource processes and change management techniques are incorporated in a series of activities that help clinicians and their support staff plan and implement improvements to services. [adapted from au

Georgia's health care system underwent dramatic reform after gaining independence in 1991. The decentralization of the health care system was one of the core elements of health care reform but reports suggest that human resource management issues were overlooked. The Georgian national immunization program was affected by these reforms and is not functioning at optimum levels. This paper describes the state of human resource management practices within the Georgian national immunization program in late 2004. [from abstract]

This report is based on deliberations from an international consultation on strengthening leadership and management as an essential component to scaling health services to reach the Millennium Development Goals. The focus was on low-income countries though the principles discussed concerned leadership and management in other settings as well. The report describes a technical framework adopted by the consultation for approaching management development and sets out key principles for sustained and effective capacity building. [author's description]

Employers in the hospital sector have been examining new ways of providing care. Over the past decade nurse staffing has been a challenge for hospitals. One response has been to use a nursing resource team, an innovative transformation of the float pool of the past. Resource teams consist of staff employed by the organization to cover vacancies and absences and to respond to increases in patient acuity or numbers.

The intent of the report is to stimulate creative discussions among [British Colubia’s] health system stakeholders about opportunities for coordinated action on employee and workplace health. The best available evidence suggests that the scope and depth of workplace health challenges today require solutions that go beyond traditional workplace health promotion programs.

This best practice guideline focuses on nursing teams and processes that foster healthy work environments. The focus for the development of this guideline was collaborative practice among nursing teams with the view that this may be a first stage in a multi-staged process that could eventually result in interprofessional guidelines. A healthy work environment for nurses is a practice setting that maximizes the health and well being of nurses, quality patient outcomes and organizational performance. Effective nursing teamwork is essential to the work in health care organizations. [from purpose]