Integrating human resource issues into planning and implementing reform

Most experts recognise the importance of human resource management in the planning and implementation of health sector reform. Professor James Buchan argues in Administrative and civil service reform – health sector issues that human resources must be an integral part of planning and managing health service delivery. Emphasising the potentially overlooked importance of managing and administrating human resources in the health sector in this web document, he acknowledges that managing HR in health care is a complex challenge.

In The interface between health sector reform and human resources in health Rigloi and Dussault review evidence on how individual or collective actions of human resources are shaping reforms, by spotlighting the reform process, the workforce reactions and the factors determining successful human resources participation. It attempts to provide a more powerful way of predicting the effects and interactions in which different "technical designs" operate when they interact with the human resources they affect.

Many of the main challenges facing health systems in developing countries are directly or indirectly related to issues of human resources. The WHO report on the Workshop on global health workforce strategy: Annecy, France 9-12 December 2000 presents a summary of the proceedings and recommendations for action of a workshop held at Annecy, France by the Global Health Workforce Strategy Group. The workshop was held to inform the work of the GHWSG and to ensure that other stakeholders could participate fully in identifying priority areas for coordinated action to improve human resources for health (HRH) policy and practice. Four main interlinked components of work were identified for an agreed programme of priority action outlining key steps to forward advocacy of HRH issues:

• strengthening HRH in context, through the development of methods for HR impact assessment, and better integration of HR activities in other elements of health sector policy, planning and management
• developing HR competences and structures, through training and development of HR practitioners, the effective use of external "experts" and consultants, identification and application of appropriate knowledge tools, and improvements in HR information and performance management systems
• improving HR advocacy and networking by awareness-raising among stakeholders, sustained support of regional and country-level events, web sites, and other forms of networking
• enhancing the evidence base on HRH through coordinated support for research on the impact of HRH policy, practice and tools; a recognition of the need for country and context specificity; and improved collation and dissemination of available evidence
  

The editorial of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Human resources impact assessment provides an overview of the role of human resources within the health sector, regardless of whether it is public or private. The editorial discusses the importance of human resources management within the health sector, and suggests that policy-makers and donors concerned with human resources problems 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. Such assessments would examine the likely effects of the proposed project or policy on the health workforce.