Effort Index Tool Offers a Way to Measure Health Workforce Progress

Photograph by Trevor Snapp for IntraHealth InternationalAugust 15, 2017National decision-makers in the health sector can now take stock of their health workforces and the systems that support them using theHuman Resources for Health (HRH) Effort Index, a tool developed byIntraHealth International with support from the US Agency for International Development. Results from four countries where the index was applied are now available inHuman Resources for Health.The HRH Effort Index measures health workforce status and progress, provides information that can help leaders build consensus and prioritize strategic investments, and facilitates more accurate comparisons of the HRH situation across countries, regions, or districts.Inspired by the widely usedFamily Planning Effort Index, the tool surveys knowledgeable informants through 50 questions organized by the seven key dimensions of HRH:leadership and advocacypolicy and governancefinanceeducation and trainingrecruitment, distribution, and retentionhuman resources managementmonitoring, evaluation, and information systemsScores (on a ten-point scale) are then tallied by each dimension and overall.Through the USAIDCapacityPlus project, IntraHealth applied the HRH Effort Index in Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic (both nationally and subnationally), Ghana, and Mali. While overall scores ranged from 4.8 to 5.5 —around midrange—there were important variations across dimensions within countries. In general, recruitment, distribu...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: news