Health Workers

With the post-Millennium Development Goals aim of universal health coverage, major external donors will find themselves increasingly constrained in meeting the needs of developing countries. They are seeking ways to generate greater health value from the limited funds available.

The Center for Global Development (CGD) has been looking into this question, and will be issuing an important report on the subject of getting health value for money.

No health care is delivered without health workers. As one of the six building blocks for health systems strengthening, the health workforce is best addressed systematically rather than with silver bullets. Any effort to maximize health impact is critically dependent on an adequately trained, competent, productive, appropriately distributed, retained, and well-managed health workforce. It must be anchored in the composition and performance of the health workforce, one responsive to national needs. It is this aspect that has been largely under-financed by external donors in nearly all cases. Read more »

This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

In 2010, an estimated 287,000 women died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. Of these deaths, 85% occurred in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. This represents a global decline of 47% since 1990—but falls disappointingly short of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target of 75%.

Last week, I returned from Women Deliver, the largest global meeting of the decade to focus on the health and well-being of girls and women. With just two and a half years left to meet the MDGs, more than 4,500 participants in Kuala Lumpur rallied around the need to accelerate progress to achieve MDG 5: to improve maternal health. Read more »

“The world needs more midwives now more than ever,” said the Honorable Minister of Health of Nigeria, Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate. On May 6, Pate was joined by stakeholders and international development partners, including CapacityPlus/Nigeria’s Chief of Party Sam Ngobua, to celebrate the 2013 International Day of Midwives.

Hosted by the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives and the Commission for Professional Midwives of Nigeria, the celebration featured the Honorable Minister of Health Pate, who encouraged women to take up the profession of midwifery and develop interests in maternal advocacy at all levels. Read more »

Uganda's Human Resources for Health Information System (HRHIS) started in 2006, as the registration and licensure registry in the Uganda Nursing and Midwifery Council. The council entered its historical data to track health worker licensure and registration information. Since then, the system has expanded to support the management of employed health workers and is now being used in the remaining three professional councils, the Ministry of Health, all four national health institutions, all 13 regional referral hospitals, and 74 out of the 112 districts—impressive progress in a highly decentralized health system.

The software the system is built on, iHRIS Qualify and iHRIS Manage, was developed and refined based on experiences and needs in Uganda. Seven years later, the iHRIS software is now used by 15 countries to support over half a million health worker records. Users of the system experience its benefits such as faster and easier access to vital information for more informed decision-making, and continue to envision ways to increase its functionality and improve its ease of use. As with any evolving technology, Uganda’s HRHIS challenges (e.g., connectivity in more remote sites, interoperability of various Ministry of Health and other government information systems, availability of sufficient dedicated human and financial resources, and resistance to change by users of the system) remain to be addressed.  Read more »