East Asia & Pacific

In Indonesia, a bottom-up workforce planning tool used with health workers directly has changed practice, realigned health workers’ roles, and increased motivation among staff. It shows how effective empowerment can be in the workplace. Workload Indicators of Staffing Need, or WISN, is straightforward and easily applied. [from author]

A study across three countries to identify policies which would help recruit and retain health workers in rural areas revealed that there is a danger in one size fits all recommendations when it comes to designing human resource policies. Results also show that there is room for both financial and non-financial incentives in human resource interventions in developing countries. [from author]

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the leading cause of liver disease and liver cancer and a major source of health-related discrimination in China. To better target HBV detection and prevention programs, it is necessary to assess existing HBV knowledge, educational resources, reporting, and preventive practices, particularly among those health professionals who would be responsible for implementing such programs. [from abstract]

While there is considerable research on medical workforce supply trends, there is little research examining the determinants of labour supply decisions for the medical workforce. The MABEL study investigates workforce participation patterns and their determinants using a longitudinal survey of Australian doctors. It aims to generate evidence to support developing effective policy responses to workforce issues such as shortages and maldistribution. This paper describes the study protocol and baseline cohort, including an analysis of response rates and response bias. [from abstract]

Financial incentives have been used for many years internationally to improve quality of care in general practice. The aim of this pilot study was to determine if offering general practitioners a small incentive payment per test would increase chlamydia testing in women aged 16 to 24 years, attending general practice. [from abstract]

This paper presents the findings of qualitative research documenting the participant experiences in the Observer Program, a hospital-based pre-employment program for international medical graduates entering the Australian healthcare system. [adapted from author]

The Toolkit is adapted from the WHO WISN Manual. WISN has traditionally been in a top down approach with limited success, particularly when applying it within the context of a decentralized government system. It was recognized that a more innovative approach was required to implement the methodology successfully at decentralized levels. [from author]

This article describes a systematic process to develop and implement two strategic action plans focussing on competence development based on specific job descriptions. The approach was a change from only focussing on training, to a broader, long term approach to human resource development for comprehensive TB control. [adapted from abstract]

This paper examines aging of the general medical practitioner and specialist workforce in Australia and projects the numbers and timing of their retirement to 2025. It also discusses the impact that the retirement of experienced health care professionals has on the training requirements of the future health care workforce. [adapted from author]

This report presents the consolidated findings from the desk review and the in-country assessment, as well as recommendations for interventions that could strengthen the role private health care providers can play in achieving health sector objectives. [from summary]

Japan has experienced two large changes which affect the supply and distribution of physicians. They are increases in medical school enrollment capacity and in the proportion of female physicians. The purpose of this study is to estimate the future supply of physicians by specialty and to predict the associated impact of increased female physicians, as well as to discuss the possible policy implications. [from abstract]

The objective of this article was to determine the current practices of private practitioners for the management of STIs in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia, evaluation of pharmacotherapy for STIs in private clinics and to ascertain the management of STIs compared to standard guidelines. [from author]

The mandatory interprofessional education program - a process by which students and practitioners from various health professions learn together with the goals of interaction and collaboration in providing health promotion, disease prevention, curative services, rehabilitation and palliation - was initiated in 1999 at Gunma University. This paper is a statistical evaluation of the programme from 1999 to 2007. [adapted from abstract]

The maldistribution of physicians between urban and rural areas has long been an important political issue in Japan. The aim of this study was to evaluate long-term transition in the geographic distribution of physicians, and to reveal which rural physician characteristics predict their retention in rural areas. [adapted from abstract]

Rural and remote areas of Australia are facing serious health workforce shortages. While a
number of schemes have been developed to improve recruitment to and retention of the rural
health workforce, they will be effective only if appropriately targeted. This study examines
the factors that most encourage students attending rural clinical placements to work in rural
Australia, and the regions they prefer. [from abstract]

This article presents the results of a study analyzing national trends in Japan regarding the distribution and career transitions of physicians among types of facilities and specialties over a 30-year period. [adapted from abstract]

This paper provides a literature review and documents existing programmes for task shifting anaesthesia services to mid-level providers in South Asia to increase access to emergency obstetric care and reduce maternal mortality. [adapted from abstract]

This article documents the key stages of a project to develop and implement an online resource for facilitating local implementation and delivery of a program to provide improved access to mental health care. The article also reports on the use of this resource 12 months after its launch. [adapted from abstract]

This review provides a comprehensive overview of the most important studies addressing the recruitment and retention of doctors to rural and remote areas of Australia. [adapted from abstract]

This guide details efforts to promote workforce sustainability by recognizing the need for a flexible healthcare workforce with skills to match patient and client needs while ensuring Tasmania keeps pace with international health workforce developments. [adapted from introduction]

The first study of the Australian hospital pharmacy workforce (public and private hospitals) was undertaken in 2001. Data from this study provided a baseline and were used to estimate the future demand for hospital pharmacists. This article summarizes an update of this survey done in 2005. [adapted from author]

The first study of the Australian hospital pharmacy workforce (public and private hospitals) was undertaken in 2001. Data from this study provided a baseline and were used to estimate the future demand for hospital pharmacists. This article summarizes an update of this survey done in 2007. [adapted from author]

Recent years have seen growing awareness of the importance of human resources for health in health systems and with it an intensifying of the international and national policies in place to steer a response. This paper looks at how governments and donors in five countries: Cameroon, Indonesia, Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania, have translated such policies into action. [from abstract]

Prevention of mother-to-child transmission has been considered as not a simple intervention but a comprehensive set of interventions requiring capable health workers. Viet Nam’s extensive health care system reaches the village level, but still HIV-infected mothers and children have received inadequate health care services for prevention of mother-to-child transmission. We report here the health workers’ perceptions on factors that lead to their failure to give good quality prevention of mother-to-child transmission services. [from abstract]

Regional Australia is critically short of registered nurses (RNs) due to an ageing nursing workforce and difficulty in attracting new staff. It is recognised that rural background is the most influential factor shaping a health professional’s decision to practise in regional areas. Because of this, Charles Sturt University offered a bachelor of nursing by distance education (DE), enabling rural and remote enrolled nurses (ENs)to upgrade their qualifications to RN. However, despite the flexible study mode offered, many rural and remote ENs were reluctant to progress to university study.

This presentation offers the results of a study examining organizational and institutional perspectives on international labor migration, as well as a case study on nurse migration and recruitment from the Philippines to the U.S.

An estimated four million deaths occur annually among children in the neonatal period. Current evidence-based interventions could prevent a large proportion of these deaths; however, neonatal health care workers need to have knowledge regarding such practices before being able to put them into action. This survey assesses the knowledge of primary health care practitioners regarding basic, evidence-based procedures in neonatal care in a Vietnamese province and investigates whether differences in level of knowledge were linked to certain characteristics of community health centers.

This presentation covers the proces of developing a regional guideline for country strategic planning, results from a situational analysis, a draft regional guideline and the next steps. [adapted from author]

The Rural Allied Health Workforce Study (RAHWS) uses a cross-sectional survey instrument with high validity to provide a large scale but detailed profile of the allied health workforce in regional, rural and remote Australia. The RAHWS survey instrument has been designed to provide uniform data across a wide range of healthcare settings and will be used to explore the rural allied health workforce in rural regions in Australia during 2009 and 2010. [from abstract]

The United Kingdom has recruited nurses from countries with a reported surplus in their nursing workforce, such as India and the Philippines. However, little is known about the decision to emigrate made by nurses from these countries. One theory suggests that individuals weigh the benefits and costs of migration: the push and pull factors. This paper challenges the restricted economic focus of this predominant theory and compares the diverse motivations of nurses from different countries as well as those of nurses with previous migratory experience and first-time migrants. [from abstract]