Documents & Reports

This edition of Hotline, an HRH newletter focused on the needs of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in Africa, highlights resources, trainings and workshops, articles of interest and other information for FBO HRH pracitioners.

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 outlines a study from rural Tanzania that shows that there is a huge potential for improving service quality with the existing workforce, by reducing the large gap between knowledge and practice. [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]

The focus of this brief is on nurses’, clinical officers’ and assistant medical officers’ job preferences and their willingness to work in rural and remote areas in Tanzania. [from author]

Scott Radloff, director of USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health, talks about successful strategies to bring integrated health services to communities in need. [from publisher]

This framework has been designed to provide an overarching, national platform that will guide future health workforce policy and planning in Australia. It sets out key priority areas and five essential domains that create the foundation for an integrated, high performing workforce fit to meet Australia’s health care needs.[from foreword]

This report tracks hotlines operating in developing countries that connect callers to health professionals, assesses the hotlines success to date, offers suggestions to advance this approach, and assesses their commercial viability and potential for growth. [adapted from author]

The ultimate goal of this project was to help policy and decision makers maintain and enhance the health of the nursing workforce by providing them with an overview of the information related to nurse health in Canada. [adapted from author]

As clinical experts, leaders and change agents, advanced practice nurses (APN) are recognized as an important human resource strategy for improving access to high-quality, cost-effective and sustainable models of healthcare. This report aims to develop a better understanding of the roles of APNs, the contexts in which they are currently being used, and the health system factors that influence the effective integration of advanced practice nursing in the Canadian healthcare system. [adapted from author]

The imperative to deliver the best care possible drives research on best practices in nursing. This study examines what it takes to spread a guideline or recommendation from one or two units or organizations to a system-wide innovation that benefits all patients and providers and the healthcare system as a whole; what cost drivers and increased benefits come with spreading a best practice; and what supports, sustains or gets in the way of spreading evidence-informed change. [adapted from summary]

The growing penetration of mobile phone networks in many low- and middle-income countries is transforming the way health services and information are accessed, delivered and managed. This document provides an overview of mHealth initiatives, an analysis of the results of the different types of intitiatives, barriers to implementation and an evaluation based on WHO surveys. [from author]

This document outlines the multifaceted and complex causes of the health worker shortage and makes the case for the United States and other developed countries to seriously address the problem of the global human resource shortage, particularly in the most disadvantaged countries. [adapted from summary]

This paper discusses the background of HRH shortages in the listed countries, as well as plans for steps to resolve the issue. [from publisher]

This study examines the ability of political, legal, health, and communities to respond to gender-based violence in Kigali, Rwanda. [from publisher]

This paper discusses the meaning of gender equality in the context of human resources for health, and offers practical ways to address it. [from publisher]

This technical brief discusses the potential impact of population growth on countries’ efforts to improve their populations’ access to skilled health workers. [from author]

The aim of this statement is to draw attention to the vital role that the community-based health workforce plays in all phases of emergency risk management; promote the scale-up of the community-based health workforce; and encourage governments and supporting partners to reinforce the community-based health workforce by strengthening and preparing existing health systems. [from author]

This document reviews and evaluates the effectiveness of mental health programmes in primary health care in the developing countries. It argues that the scaricity of trained mental health professionals necessitates the use of non-specialized health workers, including primary health workers, nurses and doctors working in collaboration to bring basic mental health care within reach of the mass of the population in developing countries. [adapted from author]

This publication provides the latest estimates on available resources for treatment and prevention of neuropsychiatric disorders globally, in WHO regions, and in groups of countries with different levels of economic development. [from preface]

This volume presents an analysis of health professional mobility in Europe from a health system perspective. The central policy issue of this analysis is that health professional mobility impacts on the performance of health systems and that these impacts are increasing in line with increasing mobility in Europe. [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 report outlines a sustainable cascade training approach to train a subset of the doctors, nurses, and clinical officers who provide long-acting and permanent methods (LA/PM) to serve as district-level LA/PM trainers. These trainers trained other doctors, nurses, and clinical officers in their districts to offer LA/PMs.

This brief outlines a project whose objective was to have health and family planning field workers from the government and from nongovernmental organizations distribute misoprostol tablets to pregnant women in Tangail District in central Bangladesh, to assess the approach’s effectiveness, and to gather lessons learned and provide recommendations for national scale-up. [adapted from author]

This study is an attempt to understand how aging affects physicians’ work, including staying in or leaving clinical practice, and the impact of this on health workforce planning. [adapted from author]

Traditional birth attendants have been a subject of discussion in the provision of maternal and newborn health care, especially in developing countries where there is a lack of infrastructure and trained health personnel. The objective of this study was to assess the role of trained traditional birth attendants in maternal and newborn health care in Afar Regional State. [from abstract]

This brief outlines the need for supportive supervision, the challenges to its implementation in the Pacific, and recommendations to address these. [adapted from author]

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working
at community level in Bangladesh; their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Routine health information systems generate potentially useful data, but it is often of low quality and not trusted for decision making. This document outlines PRISM Tools, which provide a structured way to assess the quality of data and use of information in its routine health information system. [adapted from author]

This strategy document introduces the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM) as it relates to health workers, the scale of the problem in the medical field, challenges to be addressed concerning medicalization of FGM, and strategies to accelerate progress from health care providers and national authorities. [adapted from author]