The Knowledge library

Productivity

Christian Health Association of Malawi: General Report of the Health Workforce Productivity Assessment and Early Progress on Implementation of Improvement Interventions

Health workforce productivity measures the number of health services produced by health workers in a given period of time. Assessing health workforce productivity at the health facility level is a key step for developing and implementing effective improvement strategies. The Christian Health Association of Malawi, in collaboration with CapacityPlus, conducted a productivity assessment through a field test of CapacityPlus's Health Workforce Productivity Analysis and Improvement Toolkit. This report presents findings from the assessment as well as early progress from implementation of the improvement interventions through June 2015.

Health Workforce Productivity Analysis and Improvement Toolkit

Health Workforce Productivity Analysis and Improvement ToolkitThe health workforce is critical for ensuring access to high-quality family planning/reproductive health, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, and other services in order to improve health outcomes. While increasing the number of health workers where there are shortages is essential, it is equally important to improve the productivity of the existing workforce and make service delivery more efficient. The Health Workforce Productivity Analysis and Improvement Toolkit describes a step-wise process to measure the productivity of facility-based health workers, understand the underlying causes of productivity problems, and identify potential interventions to address them. Users can enter and save facility-level data on service delivery outputs and human resources costs in order to calculate total health workforce productivity and compare these rates across facilities. This process differentiates higher-productivity facilities from lower-productivity ones, which through a qualitative assessment can help managers and supervisors to consider which factors are affecting health workforce productivity in the facilities.

Health Workforce Productivity: An Approach for Measurement, Analysis, and Improvement

Increasing health workers’ productivity will make service delivery more efficient and ensure that high-quality family planning, reproductive health, HIV and AIDS, maternal and child health and other key services are accessible to the population. This free course on the Global Health eLearning Center, by CapacityPlus’s Rachel Deussom and Wanda Jaskiewicz of IntraHealth International, explores some basic concepts of health workforce productivity. It provides useful descriptions of a quantitative, formulaic approach for measuring productivity at the facility level; possible underlying causes of low productivity and methods to measure them; and potential interventions to improve productivity and strengthen health services. It takes approximately two hours to complete the course, after which each learner will receive a certificate.

Improving Efficiency, Productivity, and Performance with the Workforce You Have, Not the One You Wish You Had

This presentation was given at the CapacityPlus knowledge-sharing and dissemination event, Supporting Country-Led Efforts to Recruit and Retain Health Workers and Improve Their Productivity, held on February 18, 2014, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Tools, Evidence, and Research Gaps for More Effective Community Health Worker Performance and Productivity

This presentation guided an interactive roundtable discussion at the CapacityPlus knowledge-sharing and dissemination event, Supporting Country-Led Efforts to Recruit and Retain Health Workers and Improve Their Productivity, held on February 18, 2014, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Supporting Country-Led Efforts to Recruit and Retain Health Workers and Improve Their Productivity

CapacityPlus, with the USAID ASSIST Project and the World Bank, cohosted a knowledge-sharing and dissemination event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on February 18. The three-hour program focused on the latest evidence from country applications of innovations to strengthen health workforce recruitment, retention, and productivity. Through a combination of panel presentations, interactive roundtable groups, and moderated question-and-answer sessions, participants learned about and discussed various approaches and tools that can be used to develop policies to strengthen recruitment, retention, and productivity and improve access to high-quality family planning, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and other health services. Read the related news and access videos and presentations: Read more »

Increasing Community Health Worker Productivity and Effectiveness: A Review of the Influence of the Work Environment

Community health workers (CHWs) are increasingly recognized as a critical link in improving access to services and achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals. Given the financial and human resources constraints in developing countries, CHWs are expected to do more without necessarily receiving the needed support to do their jobs well. This article in Human Resources for Health presents policy-makers and program managers with key considerations for a model to improve the work environment as an important approach to increase CHW productivity and, ultimately, the effectiveness of community-based strategies.

Ensuring a Positive Practice Environment: Occupational Safety and Health for Health Worker Productivity

Providing high-quality health care should not be hazardous to the health worker. Health workers are adversely affected by numerous occupational safety and health (OSH) hazards they face on the job. Effective OSH measures contribute to national workforce health and productivity, but only 5%-10% of workers in developing countries have adequate OSH services. This technical brief outlines ways to make health workers’ safety a higher-level policy issue and shows how to create working environments that prioritize occupational health.

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