scholarly journals Researching the health workforce: a framework for action

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
E Kuhlmann ◽  
R Batenburg ◽  
G Dussault
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Health Workforce ◽  
Knowledge Gaps ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Health Workforce Governance ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Workforce Policy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Health Workforce Policy

Abstract Background The importance of a sustainable health workforce is increasingly recognised. However, the building of a future health workforce that is responsive to diverse population needs and demographic and economic change remains challenging. There is a need to improve research and education to address these questions effectively and build capacity for public health approaches in health workforce policy. This paper introduces an agenda for health workforce research. Methods The research agenda has been developed through bringing together expertise and knowledge from a wide range of authors and leading organisations involved in health workforce research and policy. It takes a health system approach and focuses on Europe. Results Six major objectives for health workforce policy were identified: (1) to develop frameworks that align health systems/governance and health workforce policy/planning, (2) to explore the effects of changing skill mixes and competencies across sectors and occupational groups, (3) to map how education and health workforce governance can be better integrated, (4) to analyse the impact of health workforce mobility on health systems, (5) to optimise the use of international/EU, national and regional health workforce data and monitoring and (6) to build capacity for policy implementation. The research highlights critical knowledge gaps that currently hamper the opportunities of effectively responding to these challenges and advising policymakers in different health systems. Closing these knowledge gaps is therefore an important step towards future health workforce governance and policy implementation. Conclusions There is an urgent need for building health workforce research as an independent, interdisciplinary and multi-professional field. Action has to be taken to establish new training courses and Master programmes to create competences for leadership in health workforce research.

How to Make Your Work Really Influence Future Healthcare

2017 ◽  
pp. 271-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleš Bourek
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Healthcare Environments ◽  
Personalized Health ◽  
Personalized Health Care

Future health systems, besides traditional areas defined and addressed since 1980, face the advent of Proactive, Predictive, Prospective, Preventive, Participative and Personalized health care (HC). Reliable e-health platforms can help us with these challenges. They should be designed and implemented in a way to help ordinary people achieve extraordinary results. Even the best projects addressing HC systems improvement are not automatically qualified for implementation unless adopted by policy makers. The introduction of strategies with a potential for healthcare systems improvement to policy makers is necessary but difficult because of the complexity of the addressed issue. Illustrated on four projects, selected from the 25 the author participated in, from 1993 to 2016, principles, processes and attitudes found beneficial for successful policy implementation in various healthcare environments, are presented, to help with the integration of reliable electronic healthcare platforms into coming healthcare systems.

scholarly journals Improving mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in humanitarian settings: reflections on research funded through R2HC

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wietse A. Tol ◽  
Alastair Ager ◽  
Cecile Bizouerne ◽  
Richard Bryant ◽  
Rabih El Chammay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Psychosocial Support ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Psychosocial Needs ◽  
Knowledge Gaps ◽  
Humanitarian Settings ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Major knowledge gaps remain concerning the most effective ways to address mental health and psychosocial needs of populations affected by humanitarian crises. The Research for Health in Humanitarian Crisis (R2HC) program aims to strengthen humanitarian health practice and policy through research. As a significant portion of R2HC’s research has focused on mental health and psychosocial support interventions, the program has been interested in strengthening a community of practice in this field. Following a meeting between grantees, we set out to provide an overview of the R2HC portfolio, and draw lessons learned. In this paper, we discuss the mental health and psychosocial support-focused research projects funded by R2HC; review the implications of initial findings from this research portfolio; and highlight four remaining knowledge gaps in this field. Between 2014 and 2019, R2HC funded 18 academic-practitioner partnerships focused on mental health and psychosocial support, comprising 38% of the overall portfolio (18 of 48 projects) at a value of approximately 7.2 million GBP. All projects have focused on evaluating the impact of interventions. In line with consensus-based recommendations to consider a wide range of mental health and psychosocial needs in humanitarian settings, research projects have evaluated diverse interventions. Findings so far have both challenged and confirmed widely-held assumptions about the effectiveness of mental health and psychosocial interventions in humanitarian settings. They point to the importance of building effective, sustained, and diverse partnerships between scholars, humanitarian practitioners, and funders, to ensure long-term program improvements and appropriate evidence-informed decision making. Further research needs to fill knowledge gaps regarding how to: scale-up interventions that have been found to be effective (e.g., questions related to integration across sectors, adaptation of interventions across different contexts, and optimal care systems); address neglected mental health conditions and populations (e.g., elderly, people with disabilities, sexual minorities, people with severe, pre-existing mental disorders); build on available local resources and supports (e.g., how to build on traditional, religious healing and community-wide social support practices); and ensure equity, quality, fidelity, and sustainability for interventions in real-world contexts (e.g., answering questions about how interventions from controlled studies can be transferred to more representative humanitarian contexts).

Using economic analysis in health workforce policy-making

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edson C. Araujo ◽  
Timothy Grant Evans ◽  
Akiko Maeda
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Health Workforce ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Workforce Policy ◽  
Health Workforce Policy

Health workforce policy and industrial relations in Australia: ministerial insights into challenges and opportunities for reform

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvana Sgrò
Keyword(s):  
Health Policy ◽  
Health Workforce ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Workforce Policy ◽  
Health Workforce Policy

Since the Productivity Commission released its research report Australia’s Health Workforce in 2005, there has been a significant increase in government funding and policy capacity aimed at health workforce reform and innovation in Australia. This research paper presents the results of semistructured interviews with three key stakeholders in health policy formation in Australia: (1) The Honourable Lindsay Tanner, former Federal Minister for Finance and therefore 100% shareholder of Medibank Private on behalf of the Commonwealth; (2) The Honourable Daniel Andrews, former Victorian Minister for Health and current Victorian Opposition Leader; and (3) The Honourable Jim McGinty, former Minister for Health and Attorney General of Western Australia and current inaugural Chair of Health Workforce Australia. The paper examines key issues they identified in relation to health workforce policy in Australia, particularly where it intersects with industrial relations, and conducts a comparative analysis between their responses and theoretical methodologies of policy formation as a means of informing a reform process. What is known about the topic? Australia is experiencing an increasing demand for ever-improving health services and outcomes from an increasingly health-literate public, coupled with significant workforce shortages across some key categories of healthcare professionals. Health costs are also increasing. As a result governments in all nine jurisdictions in Australia are seeking to rein in those costs without negatively impacting on quality, safety or continued improvements in health outcomes. They are simultaneously seeking to minimise any political controversy or negative electoral repercussions associated with health reform. What does this paper add? This paper further informs an understanding of how health workforce policy is formulated and implemented by presenting the results of interviews with two former Ministers for Health and the former Federal Finance Minister on health workforce policy reform in Australia. It analyses their responses and their decision-making processes against theoretical frameworks of health policy formation, including agenda setting, and the political reality of policy formation at a ministerial level. What are the implications for practitioners? This paper provides a unique and original analysis for practitioners of policy formation. It also illustrates and analyses ministerial insights into the current health workforce reform agenda being developed and implemented by the Council of Australian Governments and contributes to an evidence base of the reform process going forward.

scholarly journals Workshop: Care4Care: the migrant care workforce in Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Health System ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Health Workforce ◽  
System Performance ◽  
Migrant Health ◽  
High Income ◽  
Health System Performance ◽  
Health Workforce Governance ◽  
Populist Movements

Abstract Background Foreign trained health workers increasingly fill the care gaps caused by labour market shortage and governance failures. As doctors, nurses and carers they make a crucial contribution to health system performance and the health of the population. These contributions are likely to increase in future, especially in high-income countries, where demographic change and NCDs reinforce the gap between demand for care and labour market supply. However, health system demands for migrant carers do not sit easily with the new wave of nationalism and populist movements in Europe and globally; they may also reinforce the ‘care drain’ in less well-resourced sending countries. There is an urgent need for more inclusive health workforce governance in order to take ‘care’ for the migrant health workforce both nationally and globally and ensure ‘health for all’. Objectives This workshop addresses these questions and fosters critical debate. It has three major aims: to make the migrant carers visible as important part of the health workforce and health system performance, to unmask the threats of growing nationalism and populist movements to healthcare systems and universal healthcare coverage, and finally to critically discuss how to govern the migrant care workforce in ways that improve both integration in the host country and solidarity across Europe and globally. The workshop brings together knowledge and expertise from the areas of health workforce, health services, and health policies and systems. It is organised as round table discussion, facilitated by an overview of migrant care workforce patterns and policies in selected European Union (EU) high-income countries and two in-depth country cases, namely Italy and Austria, both known for growing populism and nationalism and strong anti-migrant policies in the EU. The three panelists will discuss the role of migrant care workers and explore, from different perspectives, how to build capacity for new forms of health workforce governance that move beyond narrowly defined national/regional interests of health systems. The workshop will foster a wider debate on migrant careers and health workforce needs, and how public health can contribute to better take ‘care’ for the human resources for health. Key messages Migrant carers form an important part of the health workforce in European countries. Health systems must take care of the migrant health workforce and counteract growing nationalism.

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