Planning for human resources

Planning the supply of and demand for human resources in healthcare is a neglected topic with little consensus on how it should be done. To inform the design and development of improved workforce planning, Canadian policy-makers conducted a review of healthcare systems in five countries: Australia, France, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The main finding is that workforce planning is inefficient because it ignores crucial economic issues.

As part of a series of ten papers commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000 for the Workshop on Global Health Workforce Strategy, researchers examined the possibilities of integrating shorter term service planning and longer term human resource planning. This involves determining the numbers, mix, and distribution of health providers that will be required to meet population health needs at some identified future point in time. The authors conclude that there needs to be a focus on outcomes and integrated planning in order to provide an efficient and effective health service for future generations.

Many decision-makers readily point to human resource problems as the chief bottleneck they face in attempting to scale up health systems. Yet time and again the reform agenda avoids the sensitive and difficult issues involved—not least because there are major gaps in the knowledge base required for a realistic workforce strategy. An editorial of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Human resources impact assessment, suggests that policy-makers and donors may want to request those proposing a major new project or policy to make a systematic and formal ‘human resource impact assessment’ during its preparation.

See also Addressing the health workforce crisis: avenues for action.