Guides

Section 6, “Developing Human Resources for Health,” describes the dire shortage of human resources in the health systems of low and middle income countries and the special challenges posed by this crisis. It touches on ways of addressing shortages of qualified staff and gives several examples of how countries can use technical support to build stronger a health workforce. [author’s description]

This document presents a framework for analyzing factors affecting the development and implementation of HRH policies and strategies.

A central part of the World Federation for Medical Education strategy is to give priority to specification of international standards and guidelines for medical education, comprising both institutions and their educational programmes. Adoption of international standards will constitute a new framework for medical schools to measure themselves. Furthermore, internationally accepted standards could be used as a basis for national and regional recognition and accreditation of medical schools’ educational programs. [from introduction]

This book contains a series of case studies which depict the management issues a family planning organization faces in designing and implementing a new community-based distribution (CBD) program for contraceptives. The cases, which take place in a fictional country Momonboro, are based on an actual program initiated in an African country, and reflect the problems and successes which that program experienced. The book is divided into seven sections: an overview of CBD, planning, effective management, supervision, compensation and pricing, financial control, and a start-up kit that serves as a guide through the major tasks of planning and implementing a CBD project.

Many health care organisations recognise the importance of taking a proactive approach to dealing with workplace harassment and bullying. Its effects are harmful to all concerned – the people directly involved in a complaint, team members and the whole organisation…This document provides guidance for managers and RCN negotiators on good practice in dealing with workplace bullying and harassment. [from introduction]

This manual is a collection of adaptable tools and guidelines designed to help clinic supervisors and clinic managers achieve objective improvements in the quality of health care. The manual is especially useful for managers supervising integrated health services, who, on any given day, may be called on to support the provision of a full range of primary health services. The manual is designed to complement more detailed standard operating procedures that may be in use for specific services, for example, antiretroviral therapy. It is based on the belief that regular, systematic supervision is essential to upgrading clinic services and maintaining improvements.

This leaflet has been designed as an introduction to clinical supervision. It aims to stimulate ideas and to encourage occupational health nurses to set up supervision practice in their workplaces. Clinical supervision isn’t a management tool, but can be used as a support and prompt to professional practice in a creative way. [from introduction]

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]

The Code develops a consensus approach to dealing with the problem of international recruitment of health workers, while remaining sensitive to the needs of recipient countries and the migratory rights of individual health professionals. The Code covers issues of transparency, fairness, mutuality of benefits, compensation/reparation/restitution, selection procedures, and registration. [Description from author]

This document provides a systematic framework for establishing and maintaining community home-based care (CHBC) in resource-limited settings for people with HIV/AIDS and those with other chronic or disabling conditions.

The standards provide a new framework against which individual doctors and the medical profession can assess themselves in a voluntary self-evaluation and self-improvement process. The standards should form the basis for continuted professional development (CPD) providers in designing CPD activities. Depending on local needs and traditions, the standards can also be used by national or regional agencies engaged in monitoring, recognition, and accreditation of CPD. [from introduction]

This toolkit aims to assist in the preparation and use of health services contracts. The term “contract” is used here to cover any form of document that provides a quantified specification of the health services outputs expected from given financial inputs within a given time period and to defined quality standards, and that is used to guide and control the behaviour of both the payer of those financial inputs and the provider of the specified service outputs. [author’s description]

Government contracting of private organizations is an increasingly common tool to meet the growing demand for quality reproductive health care in developing nations. This guide brings together information about such contracting experiences in a way to serve the practical needs of World Bank staff and their government counterparts in developing countries interested in trying contracting. [introduction]

These guidelines aim to increase and improve the active and meaningful involvement of the community sector in the development, implementation and monitoring of coordinated national AIDS responses. They aim to provide practical options from which stakeholders can select those options that are most appropriate and useful to their own contexts and they promote a set of universal principles, such as human rights and gender equality, that are relevant to all countries and contexts. [adapted from abstract]

This guide is aimed mainly at nursing students. It should help you to: recognize if you or a collegue are being bullied or harassed; take action against bullying or harassment; raise awareness of the problem with employers, educators and students; encourage nursing educators and employers to carry through anti-harassment policies. [from introduction]

Establishing a salary policy is a critical function of human resource administration which serves to support the organization’s most valuable asset, its human resources. A salary policy should be equitable, structured and clearly understood. By following these components of a salary policy and answering the questions posed, an organization can reflect on its past and present salary policy and establish a salary policy that is sound. [author’s description]

This best practice guideline aims to identify and describe: leadership practices that result in healthy outcomes for nurses, patients/clients, organizations and systems; system resources that support effective leadership practices; organizational culture, values and resources that support effective leadership practices; personal resources that support effective leadership practices; and anticipated outcomes of effective nursing leadership. [author’s description]

This Manual is designed to be a quick-and-easy, user-friendly reference for the development of health management information systems (HMIS), with the focus on applications. It serves as a primer on HMIS development and provides a general overview of the basic principles, as well as the fundamental steps and issues involved in the different activities to be undertaken. It aims simply to provide the basic elements on HMIS development for people who do not have the time or the need to read deeply on the subject. For those who wish to develop a more in-depth knowledge, the Manual can also serve as

Over the past four decades there has been a trend for pharmacy practice to move away from its original focus on medicine supply towards a more inclusive focus on patient care. The role of the pharmacist has evolved from that of a compounder and supplier of pharmaceutical products towards that of a provider of services and information and ultimately that of a provider of patient care. This introductory handbook sets out a new paradigm for pharmacy practice. Its aim is to guide pharmacy educators in pharmacy practice, to educate pharmacy students and to guide pharmacists in practice to update their skills.

These guidelines are meant to assist health planners in different countries to
analyze the nursing needs as related to HIV infection, to establish consistent
nursing service policy and to help them assess the initial needs for an HIV -
informed nursing workforce. [from preface]

Electronic learning: a guide for nurse educators has been written by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Education Forum in response to growing interest in new learning technologies, both from individual nursing educators and as a result of education policy initiatives. The guidance sets out what we mean by e-learning, the skills that you as nursing educators, and your learners, will need for electronic learning, and the range of learning technology opportunities. [from introduction]

A participatory assessment process is a valuable starting point for involving all community members, including young people, in YRH and HIV/AIDS program development. YRH and HIV/AIDS program workers need skills in facilitating participatory assessments, especially when youth involvement is a key component. Supporting facilitators to learn by doing is an effective strategy to build skills in using participatory learning and action (PLA) approaches and tools during participatory assessment and throughout the project cycle. This guide aims to provide easy-to-follow guidelines for carrying out a participatory assessment with young and adult community members, and to outline how these tools and methods can be applied throughout the project cycle.

Strengthening access to a range of HIV-related services for those in need and promoting communication among service providers requires a formalized referral network of providers. However, little information about how to create these networks and few standardized tools to facilitate effective network functioning are available. This document aims to describe several models of referral networks and to provide tools and instructions that can be adapted to different settings. The document is intended for implementers, stakeholders and service providers at the facility and community levels who need guidance for creating or improving a referral network of HIV/AIDS-related services.

This document focuses on FP integration with HIV services, more specifically with HIV care and treatment services. It encourages supervisors or planners, service providers, and community-based personnel to consider opportunities for operationalizing client-responsive integration of FP and HIV services.

The Family Planning Manager’s Handbook is a standard text in management training courses around the world and has received wide recognition as a practical guide for managers of health and family planning programs. [publisher’s description]

There is a growing acknowledgment of the importance of the continuum of care and support services to people living with HIV/AIDS outside of health facilities. Greater reliance on communities to provide care and support to people living with HIV/AIDS as well as non-complex maintenance and adherence support for treatment of those who are under antiretroviral treatment is seen as a way to alleviate the burden placed on traditional health systems in countries highly affected by HIV/AIDS. This report presents findings from the field-test of the Partners for Health Reformplus guidelines developed for costing home-based care (HBC) programs, with cases drawn from nine HBC programs in Uganda.

This document focuses on the rationale, approaches and vision required for strengthening health information systems, the components and standards of a health information system, and the guiding principles for health information system development along with practical steps for implementation. [adapted from author]

The NHS in Scotland is facing unprecedented change and is looking to transform existing models of health care. It also reinforces that improvements in healthcare will be achieved by new and more efficient ways of working, such as using the skills of nurses and allied health
professionals to take on more roles and give patients more choice. This document presents a generic framework to guide the development of new roles. It can be used to assist in the planning process to ensure that roles are needs led, meet governance requirements, are sustainable, as well as ensuring that the development is supported by the whole team thus ensuring its success.

The objective of these guidelines is to provide general guidance in addressing workplace violence in the health sector. Far from being in any way prescriptive, the guidelines should be considered a basic reference tool for stimulating the autonomous development of similar instruments specifically targeted at and adapted to different cultures, situations and needs. The guidelines cover prevention, management and mitigation of the impact of workplace violence, care and support of workers affected and sustainability of initiatives. [adapted from author]

This guide is designed for managers, supervisors, educators, planners, and evaluators. Its purpose is to discuss ways to improve decisions that affect how human resources are used to provide health services. Improved decisions require up-to-date and detailed information about three components of human resources for health: (1) the workforce, (2) the work performed and (3) the work settings. This guide discusses how to establish an information system that links these three components to form a unified model of human resources planning, training, and utilization. [from overview]