Human Resources Management

This baseline assessment of HIV/AIDS service providers gathered information on productivity and engagement to develop a set of improved human resource practices that will be integrated into ongoing HIV service delivery. [adapted from summary]

There is a global need to assess physicians’ professional performance in actual clinical practice. This study focuses on the reliability and validity, the influences of some sociodemographic biasing factors, associations between self and other evaluations, and the number of evaluations needed for reliable assessment of a physician based on the three instruments used for the multisource assessment of physicians’ professional performance in the Netherlands. [from abstract]

This report summarizes the findings of a qualitative study on health workers’ performance and career in Rwanda to identify bottlenecks, strengths and shortcomings for human resources in the health sector, as perceived by both health workers and users of health services. [adapted from summary]

The objective of this study was to compare compliance with national paediatric HIV treatment guidelines between nurse prescribers and doctors at a paediatric referral centre in Gaborone, Botswana. [from author]

The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the quality of nursing service and care in three health districts in the KwaZulu Natal Province and to identify deficiencies which could be addressed by education and training for nurses. [adapted from abstract]

This study explored primary health care staff’s perception, challenges and needs pertaining to the identification of children with tuberculosis in Muheza district in Tanzania. [from abstract]

This paper uses ethnographic methods to document health workers’ antenatal care practices with reference to the national Focused Antenatal Care guidelines and identifies factors influencing health workers’ performance. Potential implications for improving antenatal care provision in Tanzania are discussed. [from abstract]

A study from rural Tanzania shows that health workers usually don’t do the investigations that are required to identify some of the deadly illnesses that could be diagnosed and treat. [adapted from author]

This brief reports the main results from a study aiming to compare worker effort levels in church-based and government health clinics in Tanzania. [from author]

This article aimed to quantify how nurses distribute their time across tasks, with patients, in individual tasks, and engagement with other health care providers; and how work patterns changed over a two year period.

Comparisons of patient experiences between providers are increasingly used as an index of provider performance. This study describes the ability of patient experience surveys to discriminate between healthcare providers for various patient groups and quality aspects, and reports the sample sizes required for reliable comparisons of provider scores. [adapted from abstract]

This guide is intended for health-care workers, program managers and policy-makers who are responsible for the quality of maternal health care within a health-care facility or of the entire health system. It presents a standard approach for monitoring the implementation of critical interventions in maternal health care and proposes a systematic process for assessing the quality of care. In its entirety, the included methods and related processes constitute the WHO maternal near-miss approach. [from introduction]

This report uses a human rights framework to examine accountability for maternal health care. It sets out several specific steps that South African and Eastern Cape governments should take to better integrate accountability into maternal health care programs and ensure their implementation through the health system. [from author]

This research evaluates the potential effect of job motivation, learning and self-assessment through performance appraisals for health personnel. [from introduction]

The explicit need to focus on quality of care underpins the aim of this study to evaluate the safety culture and teamwork climate in the public maternity units of the 5 regional hospitals in Cyprus as measured by a validated safety attitudes tool. [from abstract]

In order to gain a general picture of the intercultural challenges faced by Geneva physicians and inform the development of targeted training activities, we conducted a large-scale survey of physicians’ and medical students’ knowledge, attitudes and skills related to care of immigrant patients. This paper reports on respondents’ self-assessments of their clinical and intercultural skills. [from author]

This review aimed to assess the effects of audit and feedback on the practice of healthcare professionals and patient outcomes. [from abstract]

This paper proposes a new approach to measure inefficiency and use it in benchmarking exercises to improve provider performance. [adapted from abstract]

This report reviews information systems that report on the quality or performance of providers of healthcare in seven countries to inform the use and further development of quality information systems. [from preface]

As part of the collaborative to improve the efficiency of HIV service delivery, the authors conducted a baseline assessment of HIV/AIDS provider productivity, efficiency, and engagement in Uganda. [adapted from author]

This study describes a novel method to review and evaluate clinical performance in TB management and for evaluating tuberculosis (TB) control at the point of care using a process-based performance review tool to identify missed opportunities for early and accurate TB diagnosis. This tool is a teaching strategy where clinicians retrospectively review patient records to evaluate crucial clinical actions, and has been shown to improve clinical performance. [from author]

The study analyzes the deficiency that seem to exist between nurse curricula
and nurse practices and explore chronic care models or approaches evident among Zambian General Nursing Council (GNC) final year nursing students and GNC trained practicing nurses. The study also assesses how they formulate these chronic care models or approaches. [from author]

The purpose of this project was to determine the feasibility of routine use of information from community pharmacy claims databases by regulatory authorities to screen the quality of care provided at community pharmacies. [from abstract]

This is a digital collection of health competency tools. The Competence Search tool enables you to search the database for specific health worker competencies. The Health Functional Map is another tool to help you find relevant competences based upon the Skills for Health, Health Functional Map, and covers all of the functions that are needed to deliver effective health care services. The Self Assessment tool enables assessment of your own abilities against competences in lists/profiles. The Team Assessment tool enables a skills mix analysis of your team.

This discussion paper presents a comprehensive approach to the assessment of individual health worker, team and HRH management performance in the context of health system strengthening and the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 5. It provides examples of lessons learned in the planning, implementation and evaluation of HRH interventions in maternal, neonatal and reproductive health at the community level in the Asia and Pacific regions and considerations for enhanced performance in this area. [from introduction]

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have become a very popular tool for decision making in healthcare. While there is some evidence that CPGs improve outcomes, there are numerous factors that influence their acceptability and use by healthcare providers. This study evaluates these issues in a representative sample of clinicians in Spain. [from abstract]

This article assesses the effectiveness of village health volunteers in performing early diagnosis and treatment to reduce the burden of malaria in Loa PDR. [adapted from abstract]

The high perinatal and neonatal mortality rates in Pakistan are partially attributable to scarcity of trained skilled birth attendants and paucity of resources. Empowerment of health care providers with adequate knowledge and skills can serve as instrument of change. This training needs assessment analysis of the public health sector of Pakistan aims to recognize gaps in the processes and quality of MNCH care provided. [adapted from author]

Information about quality of malaria treatment services of different healthcare providers is needed to know how to improve the treatment of malaria since inappropriate service provision leads to increased burden of malaria. This study determined the technical and perceived quality of malaria treatment services of different types of providers in three urban and three rural areas in southeast Nigeria. [from abstract]

The primary purpose of the Data for Improvement and Clinical Excellence Long-Term Care (LTC) project is to assess the effects of a quality improvement audit with feedback intervention delivered monthly over 13 months to healthcare workers in four LTC facilities. [adapted from abstract]